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HYPERION.

HYPERION,

A ROMANCE.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

'* Loolf Dot mourafDll; into the Fast. It comei not back again. Wisely improTe
the Present. It ie thine. Oo forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, end
vim a manly boail.^*

TWENTY-SECOND EDITION.

BOSTON:
TICKNOE AND FIELDS.

M DCCO LXI.

^■»^9/

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1845, by

H. W. LONOPELLOW,

Id the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetle-

BOOK THE FIRST.

"Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,

Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon his bed has sate,
He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers.'

BOOK THE FIRST.

CHAPTER- I.

THE HERO.

In John Lyiy's " Endymion," Sir Topas is
made to say : " Dost thou know what a poet is ?
Why, fool, a poet is as much as one should say, —
a poet ! " And thou, reader, dost thou know what
a hero is ? Why, a hero is as much as one should
say, — a hero ! Some romance-writers, however,
say much more than this. Nay, the old Lom-
bard, Matteo Maria Bojardo, set all the church-
bells in Scandiano ringing, merely because he had
found a name for one of his heroes. Here, also,
shall church-bells be rung, but more solemnly.

The setting of a great hope is like the setting
of the sun. The brightness of our life is gone.
Shadows of evening fall around us, and the world
seems but a dim reflection, — itself a broader

4 HrPERION,

shadow. We look forward into the coming;
lonely night. The soul withdraws mto itself.
Then stars arise, and the night is holy.

Paul Flemming had experienced this, though
still young. The friend of his youth was dead.
The bough had broken ," under the burden of
the unripe fruit." And when, after a season, he
looked up again from the blindness of his sorrow,
all things seemed unreal. Like the man whose
sight had been restored by miracle, he beheld
men, as trees, walking. His household gods
were broken. He had no home. His sympathies
cried aloud from his desolate soul, and there
came no answer from the busy, turbulent world
around him. He did not willingly give way to
grief. He struggled to be cheerful, — to be
strong. But he could no longer look into the
familiar faces of his friends. He could no longer
live alone, where he had lived with her. He
went abroad, that the sea might be between him
and the grave. Alas ! between him and his sor-
row there could be no sea, but that of time.

He had already passed many months in lonely
wandering, and was now pursuing his way along
the Rhine, to the South of Germany. He had
journeyed the same way before, in brighter days

A ROMA^CE. 5

and a brighter season of the year, in the May of
hfe and in the month of May. He knew the
beauteous river all by heart, — 'every rock and
ruin, every echo, every legend. The ancient
castles, grim and hoar, that had taken root as it
were on the cliffs, — they were all his ; for his
thoughts dwelt in them, and the wind told him
tales.

He had passed a sleepless night at Rolandseck,
and had risen before daybreak. He opened the
window of the balcony to hear the rushing of the
Rhine. It was a damp December morning ; and
clouds were passing over the' sky, — thin, vapory
clouds, whose snow-white skirts were " often spot-
ted with golden tears, which men call stars.." The
day dawned slowly ; and, in the mingling of day-
light and starlight, the island and cloister of Non-
nenwerth made together but one broad, dark shad-
ow on the silver breast of the river. Beyond,
rose the summits of the Siebengebirg. Solemn
and dark, like a monk, stood the Drachenfels, in
his hood of mist ; and rearward extended the cur-
tain of mountains, back to the Wolkenburg, — the
Castle of the Clouds.

But Flemming thought not of the scene before
him. Sorrow unspeakable was upon his spirit in

6 HYPERION,

that lonely hour ; and, hiding his face in his hands,
he exclaimed aloud : —

" Spirit of the past ! look not so mournfully at
me with thy great tearful eyes ! Touch me not
with thy cold hand ! Breathe not upon me with
the icy breath of the grave ! Chant no more
that dirge of sorrow, through the long and silent
watches of the night ! "

Mournful voices from afar seemed to answer,
" Treuenfels ! " and he remembered how others
had suffered, and his heart grew still.

Slowly the landscape brightened. Down the
rushing stream came a boat, with its white wings
spread, and darted like a swallow through the nar-
row pass of God's-Help. The boatmen were
singing, — but not the song of Roland the Brave,
which was heard of old by the weeping Hilde-
gund, as she sat within the walls of that cloister
which now looked forth in the pale morning from
amid the leafless hnden-trees. The dim traditions
of those gray old times rose in the traveller's
memory ; for the ruined tower of Rolandseck was
still looking down upon the Kloster Nonnenwerth,
as if the sound of the funeral bell had changed the
faithful paladin to stone, and he were watching still
to see the form of his beloved one come forth, not

A ROMANCE. 7

from her cloister, but from her grave. Thus the
brazen clasps of tlie book of legends were open-
ed, and, on the page illuminated by the misty rays
of the rising sun, he read again the tales of Liba,
and the mournful bride of Argenfels, and Sieg-
fried, the mighty slayer of the dragon. Meanwhile
the mists had risen from the Rhine, and the whole
air was filled with golden vapor, through which he
beheld the sun, hanging in heaven like a drop of
blood. Even thus shone the sun within him, amid
the wintry vapors uprising from the valley of the
shadow of death, through which flowed the stream
of his life, — sighing, sigliing !

HYPERION,

CHAPTER 11.

THE CHRIST OF ANDERNACH.

Paul Flemming resumed his solitary journey.
The morning was still misty, but not cold. Across
the Rhine the sun came wading through the red-
dish vapors ; and soft and silver-white outspread
the broad river, without a ripple upon its surface,
or visible motion of the ever-moving current. A
little vessel, with one loose sail, was riding at an-
chor, keel to keel with another, that lay beneath
it, its own apparition, — and all was silent, and
calm, and beautiful.

The road was for the most part solitary ; for
there are few travellers upon the Rhine in win-
ter. Peasant women were at work in the vine-
yards ; climbing up the slippery hill-sides, like
beasts of burden, with large baskets upon their
backs. And once durmg the morning, a band of
apprentices, with knapsacks, passed by, singing,

A romaJtce, U

— " The Rhine ! the Rhine ! a blessing on the
Rhine ! "
- O, the pride of the German heart in this no
ble river ! And right it is ; for, of all the rivers of
this beautiful earth, there is none so beautiful as
this. There is hardly a league of its whole course,
from its cradle in the snovry Alps to its grave in
the sands of Holland, which boasts not its peculiar
charms. By heavens ! If I were a German, I
would be proud of it too ; and of the clustering
grapes that hang about its temples, as it reels on-
ward through vineyards in a triumphal march,
like Bacchus crowned and drunken.

But I will not attempt to describe the Rhine ; it
would make this chapter much too long. And to
do it well, one should write like a god ; and his
language flow onward royally with breaks and
dashes, like the waters of that royal river, and an-
tique, quaint, and Gothic times be reflected in it.
Alas ! this evening mine flows not at all. Flow,
then, into this smoke-colored goblet, thou blood of
the Rhine ! out of thy prison-house, — out of
thy long-necked, tapering flask, in shape not un-
like a church-spire among thy native hills ; and
from the crystal belfry loud ring the merry tink-
hng bells, while I drink a health to my hero, in

10 HYPERION,

whose heart is sadness, and in whose ears the bells
of Andernach are ringing noon.

He is threading his way alone through a narrow
alley, and now up a flight of stone steps, and
along the city wall, towards that old round tower
built by the Archbishop Frederick of Cologne in
the twelfth century. It has a romantic interest in
his eyes ; for he has still in his mind and heart
that beautiful sketch of Carove, in which is de-
scribed a day on the tower of Andernach. H6
finds the old keeper and his wife still there ; and
the old keeper closes the door behind him slowly,
as of yore, lest he should jam too hard the poor
souls in purgatory, whose fate it is to suffer in the
cracks of doors and hinges. But, alas ! alas ! the
daughter, the maiden with long, dark eyelashes !
she is asleep in her httle grave, under the lin-
den-trees of Feldkirche, with rosemary in her fold-
ed hands !

Flemming returned to the hotel disappointed.
As he passed along the narrow streets, he was
dreaming of many things ; but mostly of the keep-
er's daughter, asleep in the churchyard of Feld-
kirche. Suddenly, on turning the corner of an
ancient, gloomy church, his attention was arrest-
ed by a little chapel in an angle of the wall. It

A ROMANCE. 11

was only a small thatched roof, like a bird's nest ;
under which stood a rude wooden image of the
Saviour on the cross. A real crown of thorns was
upon his head, which was .bowed downward, as if
in the death agony ; and drops of blood were
faEing down his cheeks, and from his hands and
feet and side. The face was haggard and ghastly
beyond expression, and wore a look of unutter-
able bodily anguish. The rude sculptor had given
it this, but his art could go no farther. The
sublimity of death in a dying Saviour, the expiring
God-likeness of Jesus of Nazareth, was not there.
The artist had caught no heavenly inspiration from
his theme. All was coarse, harsh, and revoltmg
to a sensitive mind ; and Flemming turned away
with a shudder, as he saw this fearful image gazing
at him, with its fixed and half-shut eyes.

He soon reached the hotel, but that face ot
agony still haunted him. He could not refrain
from speaking of it to a very old woman, who
sat knitting by the window of the dining-room, in
a high-backed, old-fashioned arm-chair. I believe
she was the innkeeper's grandmother. At all
events, she was old enough to be so. She took off
her owl-eyed spectacles, and, as she wiped the
glasses with her handkerchief, said : —

12 HYPERION,

" Thou dear Heaven ! Is it possible ? Did you
never hear of the Christ of Andernach ? "

Flemming answered in the negative.

" Thou dear Heaven ! " continued the old wo-
man. " It is a very wonderful story ; and a true
one, as every good Christian in Andernach will
tell you. And it all happened before the death
of my blessed man, four years ago ; let me see, —
yes, four years ago, come Christmas."

Here the old woman stopped speaking, but
went on with her knitting. Other thoughts seem-
ed to occupy her mind. She was thinking, no
doubt, of her blessed man, as German widows
call their dead husbands. But Flemming having
expressed an ardent wish to hear the wonderful
story, she told it, in nearly the following words.

" There was once a poor old woman in Ander-
nach whose name was Frau Martha, and she lived
all alone in a house by herself, and loved all the
Saints and the Blessed Virgin, and was as good as
an angel, and sold tarts down by the Rheinkrahn.
But her house was very old, and the roof-tiles
were broken, and she was too poor to get new ones,
and the rain kept coming m, and no Christian soul
in Andernach would help her. But the Frau
Martha was a good woman, and never did any body

A ROMANCE. 13

any harm, but went to mass every morning, and
sold tarts down by the Rheinkrahn. Now one
dark, windy night, when all the good Christians in
Andernach were asleep in the feathers, Frau
Martha, who lay under the roof, heard a great
noise over her head, and in her chamber, drip !
drip ! drip ! as if the rain were dropping down
through the broken tiles. Dear soul ! and, sure
enough, it was. And then there was a pounding
and hammering overhead, as if somebody were at
work on the roof ; and she thought it was Pelz-
Nickel tearing the tiles off, because she had not
been to confession often enough. So she began to
pray ; and the faster she said her Pater-noster
and her Ave-Maria, the faster Pelz-Nickel pound-
ed and pulled ; and drip ! drip ! drip ! it went all
round her in the dark chamber, till the poor
woman was frightened out of her wits, and ran to
the window to call for help. Then in a moment
all was still, — death-stiU. But she saw a light
streaming through the mist and rain, and a great
shadow on the house opposite. And then some-
body came down from the top of her house by a
ladder, and had a lantern in his hand ; and he took
the ladder on his shoulder and passed down the
street. But she could not see clearly, because

14 HYPERION,

the window was streaked with rain. And in the
morning the old broken tiles were found scattered
about the street, and there were new ones on the
roof, and the old house has never leaked to this
blessed day.

" As soon as mass was over, Frau Martha told
the priest what had happened, and he said it was
not Pelz-Nickel, but, without doubt, St. Castor or
St. Florian. Then she went to the market and
told Frau Bridget all about it ; and Frau Bridget
said, that, two nights before, Hans Claus, the coop-
er, had heard a great pounding in his shop, and in
the morning found new hoops on all his hogsheads ;
and that a man with a lantern and a ladder had
been seen riding out of town at midnight on a don-
key ; and that the same night the old windmill, at
Kloster St. Thomas, had been mended, and the
old gate of the churchyard at Feldkirche made as
good as new, though nobody knew how the man
got across the river. Then Frau Martha went
down to the Rheinkrahn and told all these stories
over again ; and the old ferryman of Fahr said he
could tell something about it ; for, the very night
that the churchyard-gate was mended, he was
lying awake in his bed, because he could not
sleep, and he heard a loud knocking at the door,

A ROMANCE. 15

and somebody calling to him to get up and set
him over the river. And when he got up, he saw
a man down by the river with a lantern and a lad-
der ; but, as he was going down to him, the man
blew out the light, and it was so dark he could not
see who he was ; and his boat was old and leaky,
and he was afraid to set him over in the dark ; but
the man said he must be in Andernach that night ;
and so he set him over. And after they had
crossed the river, he watched the man, till he
came to an image of the Holy Virgin, and saw
him put the ladder against the wall, and go up and
light his lamp, and then walk along the street.
And in the morning he found his old boat all
caulked, and tight, and painted red, and he could
not for his blessed life tell who did it, unless it were
the man with the lantern. Dear soul ! how
strange it was !

" And so it went on for some time ; and when-
ever the man with the lantern had been seen walk-
ing through the street at night, so sure as the
morning came, some work had been done for the
sake of some good soul ; and every body knew he
did it ; and yet no body could find out who he was,
nor where he lived ; — for, whenever any body
came near him, he blew out his light, turned down

16 HYPERION,

another street, and suddenly disappeared, no body
could tell how. And some said it was Riibez^hl ;
and some, Pelz-Nickel ; and some, St. Anthony-
on-the-Heath.

" Now one stormy night, a poor, sinful creature
was wandermg about the streets, with her babe
m her arms, and she was hungry, and cold, and
no soul in Andernach would take her in. And
when she came to the church, where the great
crucifix stands, she saw no light in the little chapel
at the corner ; but she sat down on a stone at the
foot of the cross and began to pray, and prayed,
till she fell asleep, with her poor little babe on
her bosom. But she did not sleep long ; for a
bright light shone full in her face ; and when she
opened her eyes, she saw a pale man, with a lan-
tern, standing right before her. He was almost
naked ; and there was blood upon his hands and
body, and great tears in his beautiful eyes, and
his face was like the face of the Saviour on the
cross. Not a single word did he say to the poor
woman ; but looked at her compassionately, and
gave her a loaf of bread, and took the little babe
in his arms, and kissed it. Then the mother
looked up to the great crucifix, but there was no
image there ; and she shrieked and fell down as

A ROMANCE. 17

if she were dead. And there she was found with
her child ; and a few days after, they both died,
and were buried together .in one grave. And no
body would have believed her story, if a woman,
who lived at the corner, had not gone to the win-
dow, when she heard the scream, and seen the
figure hang the lantern up in its place, and then
set the ladder against the wall, and go up and nail
itself to the cross. Since that night it has nev-
er moved again. Ach ! Herr Je ! "

Such was the legend of the Christ of Ander-
nach, as the old woman in spectacles told it to
Flemming. It made a painful impression on his
sick and morbid soul ; and he felt, now for the
first time, how great is the power of popular super-
stition.

The postchaise being already at the door, Flem-
ming was soon on the road to Coblentz, a town
which stands upon the Rhine, at the mouth of the
Mosel, opposite Ehrenhreitstein. It is by no
means a long drive from Andernach to Coblentz ;
and the only incident which occurred to enliven
the way was the appearance of a fat, red-faced
man on horseback, trotting slowly towards Ander-
nach. As they met, the mad little postilion gave
him a friendly cut with his whip, and broke out
2

IS HYPERION,

into an exclamation, which showed he was from
Miinster : —

" Jesmariosp ! ray friend ! How is the Man in
the Custom-house ? "

Now to any candid mind this would seem a fair
question enough ; but not so thought the red-faced
man on horseback ; for he waxed exceedingly an
gry, and replied, as the chaise whirled by : —

" The devil take you, and your Westphalian
ham, and pumpernickel ! "

Flemming called to his servant, and the servant
to the postihon, for an explanation of this short
dialogue ; and the explanation was, that on the
belfry of the Kaufhaus in Coblentz is a huge
head with a brazen helmet and a beard ; and
whenever the clock strikes, at each stroke of the
hammer, this giant's head opens its great jaws and
smites its teeth together, as if, like the brazen head
of Friar Bacon, it would say, — "Time was;
Time is ; Time is past." This figure is known
through all the country round about as " The
Man m the Custom-house " ; and when a friend in
the country meets a friend from Coblentz, instead
of saying, " How are aU the good people in Cob-
lentz ? " — he says, "How is the Man in the
Custom-house ? " Thus the giant has a great part

A ROMANCE. 19

to play in the town. And thus ended the first day
of Flemming's Rhine-joumey ; and the only good
deed he had done was to cive an alms to a poor
beggar woman, who lifted up ner trembling hands
and exclaimed : —

" Thou blessed babe ! "

20 HYPERION,

CHAPTER III.

HOMUNCULUS.

After all, a journey up the Rhine, in the mistsi
and solitude of December, is not so unpleasant as,
the reader may imagine. You have the whole
road and river to yourself. Nobody is on the
wing ; hardly a single traveller. The ruins are the
same ; and the river, and the outlines of the hills ;
and there are few living figures in the landscape
to wake you from your musings, distract your
thoughts, and cover you with dust.

Thus likewise thought our traveller, as he con-
tinued his journey on the morrow. The day is
overcast, and the clouds threaten rain or snow.
Why does he stop at the little village of Capellen ?
Because, right above him on the high cliff, the glo-
rious .ruin of Stolzenfels is looking at him with its
hollow eyes, and beckoning to him with its gigantic
finger, as if to say, — " Come up hither, and I will
tell thee an old tale." Therefore he alights, and

A ROMANCE. 21

goes up the narrow village lane, and up the stone
steps, and up the steep pathway, and throws him-
self into the arms of that ancient ruin, and holds
his breath, to hear the quick footsteps of the fall-
ing snow, like the footsteps of angels descending
upon earth. And that ancient ruin speaks to him
with its hollow voice, and says : —

" Beware of dreams ! Beware of the illusions
of fancy ! Beware of the solemn deceivings of thy
vast desires ! Beneath me flows the Rhine, and,
like the stream of Time, it flows amid the ruins of
■the Pa^t. I see myself therein, and I know that
I am old. Thou, too, shalt be old. Be wise in
season. Like the stream of thy life, runs the
stream beneath us. Down from the distant Alps,
— out into the wide world, it bursts away, like a
youth from the house of his fathers. Broad-breast-
ed and strong, and with earnest endeavours, like
manhood, it makes itself a way through these diffi-
cult mountain-passes. And at length, in its old
age, it falters, and its steps are weary and slow,
and it sinks into the sand, and, through its grave,
passes mto the great ocean, which is its eternity.
Thus shall it be with thee.

" In ancient times, there dwelt within these halls
a follower of Jesus of Jerusalem, — an Archbish-

22 HYPERION,

op in the church of Christ. He gave himself up
to dreams , to the illusions of fancy ; to the vast
desires of the human soul. He sought after the
impossible. He sought after the Elixir of Life,
— the Philosopher's Stone. The wealth, that
should have fed the poor, was melted in his cru-
cibles. Within these walls the Eagle of the clouds
sucked the blood of the Red Lion, and received
the spiritual love of the Green Dragon ; but, alas !
was childless. In solitude and utter silence did
the disciple of the Hermetic Philosophy toil from
day to day, from night to night. From the place
where thou standest, he gazed at evening upon
liills, and vales, and waters spread beneath him ;
and saw how the setting sun had changed them all
to gold, by an alchemy more cunning than his
owii. He saw the world beneath his feet ; and
said in his heart, that he alone was wise. Alas !
he' read more willmgly in. the book of Paracel-
sus than in the book of Nature ; and, believing
that ' where reason hath experience, faith hath
no mind,' would fain have made unto himself a
child, not as Nature teaches us, but as the Philos-
opher taught, — a poor homunculus, in a glass
bottle. And he died poor and childless ! "
Whether it were worth while to climb the Stolz-

A ROMANCE 23

enfels to hear such a homily as this, some persons
may perhaps doubt. But Paul Flemming doubt-
ed not. He laid the lesson to heart ; and it would
have saved him many an hour of sorrow, if he had
learned that lesson better, and remembered it
longer.

In ancient times, there stood in the citadel of
Athens three statues of Minerva. The first was
of olive-wood, and, according to popular tradition,
had fallen from heaven. The second was of
bronze, commemorating the victory of Marathon ;
and the third of gold and ivory, — a great miracle
of art, in the age of Pericles. And thus in the
citadel of Time stands Man himself. In child-
hood, shaped of soft and deUcate wood, just fallen
from heaven ; in manhood, a statue of bronze,
commemorating struggle and victory ; and, lastly,
in the maturity of age, perfectly shaped in gold
and ivory, — a miracle of art !

Flemmmg had already lived through the olive
age. He was passing into the age of bronze, in-
to his early manhood ; and in his hands the flow-
ers of Paradise were changing to the sword and
shield.

And this reminds me that I have not yet de-
scribed my hero. I will do it now, as he stands

24 HYPERION,

looking down on the glorious landscape ; — but
in few words. Both in person and character he
resembled Harold the Fair-Hair of Norway, who
is described, in the old Icelandic Death-Song
of Regner Hairy-Breeches, as " the young chief
so proud of his flowing locks ; he who spent his
mornings among the young maidens ; he who
loved to converse with the handsome widows. "
This was an amiable weakness ; and it sometimes
led him into mischief. Imagination was the rul-
ing power of his mind. His thoughts were twin
born ; the thought itself, and its figurative sem-
blance in the outer world. Thus, through the
quiet, still waters of his soul each image floated
double, " swan and shadow."

These traits of character, a good heart and a
poetic imagination, made his life joyous and the
world beautiful ; till at length Death cut down the
sweet blue flower that bloomed beside him, and
wounded him with that sharp sickle, so that he
bowed his head, and would fain have been bound
up in the same sheaf with the sweet blue flower.
Then the world seemed to him less beautiful, and
life became earnest. It would have been well,
if he could have forgotten the past ; that he might
not so mournfully have hved in it, but might have

A.ROMANCE 25

enjoyed and improved the present. But this his
heart refused to do ; and ever, as he floated upon
the great sea of life, he looked down through the
transparent waters, checkered with sunshine and
shade, into the vast chambers of the mighty deep
in which his happier days had sunk, and where-
in they were lying still visible, like golden sands,
and precious stones, and pearls ; and, half in de-
spair, half in hope, he grasped downward after
them again, and drew back his hand, filled only
with seaweed, and dripping with briny tears !
And between him and those golden sands a radi-
ant image floated, like the spirit in Dante's Para
dise, singing " Ave Maria ! " and while it sang,
down-sinking, and slowly vanishing away.

In all things he acted more from impulse than
from fixed principle ; as is the case with most
young men. Indeed, his principles hardly had
time to take root ; for he pulled them all up,
every now and then, as children do the flowers
they have planted, — to see if they are growing.
Yet there was much in him which was good ; for
underneath the flowers and greensward of poetry,
and the good principles which would have taken
root, had he given them time, there lay a strong
and healthy soil of common sense, — freshened

26 HYPERION,

by living springs of feeling, and enriched by
many faded hopes, that had fallen upon it like
dead leave§

A ROMANCE. 27

CHAPTER IV.

THE landlady's DAUGHTER.

" Allez, Fuchs ! allez, lustig ! " cried the
impatient postilion to his horses, in accents,
which, like the wild echo of the Lurley Felsen,
came first from one" side of the river, and then
from the other, — that is to say, in words alter-
nately French and German. The truth is, he
was tired of waiting ; and when Flemming had at
length resumed his seat in the postchaise, the poor
horses had to make up the time he had lost in
dreams on the mountain. This is far oftener the
case than most people imagine. One half of the
world must sweat and groan, that the other half
may dream. It would have been a difficult task
for the traveller or his postilion to persuade the
horses that these dreams were all for their good.

The next stopping-place was the little tavern
of the Star, an out-of-the-way corner in the town
of Salzig. It stands on the banks of the Rhine ;

28 IIVPEEION,

and, directly in front of it, sheer from the water's
edge, rise the mountains of Liebenstein and Ster-
nenfels, each with its ruined castle. These are
the Brothers of the old tradition, still gazing at
each other face to face ; and beneath them in
the valley stands a cloister, — meet emblem of
that orphan child they both so passionately loved.

In a small flat-bottomed boat did the land-
lady's daughter row Flemming " over the Rhine-
stream, rapid and roaring wide." She was a
beautiful girl of sixteen ; with black hair, and
dark, lovely eyes, and a face that had a story to
tell. How different faces are in this particular !
Some of them speak not. They are books in
which not a line is written, save perhaps a date
Others are great Family Bibles, with both the Old
and the New Testament written in them. Others
are Mother Goose and nursery tales ; others,
bad tragedies, or pickle-herring farces ; and oth-
ers, like that of the landlady's daughter at the
Star, sweet love-anthologies, and songs of the
affections. It was on that account that Flem-
ming said to her, as they glided out into the swift
stream : —

" My dear child ! do you know the story of the
Liebenstein .'' "

A ROMANCE. 29

'^ The story of the Liebenstein," she answered,
" I knew by heart, when I was a little child."

And here her large, dark, passionate eyes
looked into Flemming's, and he doubted not
that she had learned the story far too soon and
far too well. That story he longed to hear, as
if it were unknown to him ; for he knew that the
girl, who had got it by heart when a child, would
tell it as it should be told. So he begged her to
repeat the story, which she was but too glad to
do ; for she loved and believed it, as if it had all
been wi'itten in the Bible. But before she began,
she rested a moment on her oars, and taking the
crucifix, which hung suspended from her neck,
kissed it, and then let it sink down into her bosom,
as if it were an anchor she was dropping into her
heart. Meanwhile her moist, dark eyes were
turned to heaven. Perhaps her soul was walk-
ing with the souls of Cunizza, and Rahab, and
Mary Magdalen. Or perhaps she was thinking
of that nun, of whom St. Gregory says, in his
Dialogues, that, having greedily eaten a lettuce
in a garden, without making the sign of the cross,
she found herself soon after possessed with a
devil.

The probability, however, is, that she was

30 HYPERION,

looking at the ruined castles only, and not to heav-
en , for she soon began her story, and told Flamming
how, a great, great many years ago, an old man
lived m the , Liebenstein with his two sons ; and
how both the young men loved the Lady Geral
dine, an orphan, under their father's care ; and
how the elder brother went away in despair, and
the younger was betrothed to the Lady Geral-
dine ; and how they were as happy as Aschen-
puttel and the Prince. And then the holy Saint
Bernard came and carried away all the young
men to the war, just as Napoleon did afterwards ;
and the young lord went to the Holy Land, and
the Lady Geraldine sat in her tower and wept,
and waited for her lover's return, while the old
father built the Slernenfels for them to live in
when they were married. And when it was
finished, the old man died ; and the elder broth-
er came back and lived in the Liebenstein, and
took care of the gentle lady. Ere long there
came news from the Holy Land that the war
was over ; and the heart of the gentle lady
beat with joy, till she heard that her faithless
lover was coming back with a Greek wife, — the
wicked man ! and then she went into a convent
and became a holy nun. So the young lord of

A ROMANCE. 31

Sternenfels came home, and lived in his castle
in great splendor with the Greek woman, who
was a wicked woman, and did what she ought
not to do. But the elder brother was angry
for the wrong done the gentle lady, and chal-
lenged the lord of Sternenfels to single combat.
And while they were fighting with their great
swords in the valley of Bornhofen behind the
castle, the convent bells began to rbg, and the
Lady Geraldine came forth with a train of -nuns
all dressed in white, and made the brothers
friends again, and told them she was the bride
of Heaven, and happier in her convent than she
could have been in the Liebenstein or the Stern-
enfels. And when the brothers returned, they
found that the false Greek wife had gone away
with another knight. So they lived together
in peace, and were never married. And when
they died "

" Lisbeth ! Lisbeth ! " cried a sharp voice
from the shore, " Lisbeth ! Where are you
taking the gentleman } "

This recalled the poor girl to her senses ; and
she saw how fast they were floating down stream.
For in telling the story she had forgotten every
thing else, and the swift current had swept them

32 HYPERION,

down to the tall walnut-trees of Kamp. They
landed in front of the Capuchin monastery. Lis-
beth led the way through the little village, and
turning to the right pointed up the romantic, lone-
ly valley which leads to the Liebenstein, and
even offered to go with him. But Flemming
patted her cheek and shook his head. He went
up the valley alone.

A ROMANCE. 33

CHAPTER V.

JEAN PAUL, THE ONLY-ONE.

It was already night, when Flemming crossed
the Roman bridge over the Nahe, and entered
the town of Bingen. He stopped at the White
Horse ; and, before going to bed, looked out into
the dim starlight from his window towards the
Rhine, and his heart leaped within him to behold
the hold outline of the neighbouring hills crested
with Gothic ruins ; — which in the morning proved
to be only a high, slated roof, with fantastic chim-
neys.

The morning was bright and frosty ; and the
river tinged with gay colors by the rising sun.
A soft, thin vapor floated in the air. In the
sunbeams flashed the hoar-frost, like silver' stars ;
and through a long avenue of trees, whose drip-
ping branches bent and scattered pearls before
him, Paul Flemming journeyed on in triumph.

The man in the play, who wished for " some
forty pounds of lovely beef, placed in a Medi-
3

34 HYPERION,

terranean sea of brewis," might have seen his
ample desires almost realized at the table d'hote
of the Rheinischen Hof, in Mayence, where
Fleraming dined that day. At the head of the
table sat a gentleman, with a smooth, broad
forehead, and large, intelligent eyes. He was
from Baireuth in Franconia ; and talked about
poetry and Jean Paul to a pale, romantic-look-
ing lady on his right. There was music all din-
ner-time, at the other end of the hall ; a harp
and a horn and a voice ; so that a great part ot
the fat gentleman's conversation with the pale
lady was lost to Flemming, who sat opposite to
her, and could look right into her large, melan-
choly eyes. But what he heard so much inter-
ested him, — indeed, the very name of the be-
loved Jean Paul would have been enough for
this, — that he ventured to join in the conversa-
tion, and asked the German if he had known the
poet personally.

" Yes ; I knew him well," replied the stran-
ger. "I am a native of Baireuth, where he
passed the best years of his life. In my mind
the man and the author are closely united. I
never read a page of his writings without hearing
his voice, and seeing his form before me. There

A ROMANCE. 35

he sits, with his majestic, mountainous forehead,
his mild blue eyes, and finely cut nose and mouth ;
his massive frame clad loosely and carelessly in
an old green frock, from the pockets of which
the corners of books project, and perhaps the
end of a loaf of bread and the nose of a bottle ;
— a straw hat, lined with green, lying near him ;
a huge walking-stick in his hand, and at his feet
a white poodle, with pink eyes, and a string round
his neck. You would sooner have taken him
for a master-carpenter than for a poet. Is he a
favorite author of yours .'' " Flemming answered
in the affirmative.

" But a foreigner must find it exceedingly
difficult to understand him," said the gentleman.
" It is by no means an easy task for us Germans."

" I have always observed," replied Flemming,
"that the true understanding and appreciation of
a poet depend more upon individual than upon
national character. If there be a sympathy be-
tween the minds of writer and reader, the bounds
and barriers of a foreign tongue are soon over-
leaped. If you once understand an author's
character, the comprehension of his writings be-
comes easy."

" Very true," replied the German, " and the

36 HYPERION,

character of Richter is too marked to be easily
misunderstood. Its prominent traits are tender-
ness and manliness, — qualities which are sel-
dom found united in so high a degree as in him.
Over all he sees, over all he writes, are spread
the sunbeams of a cheerful spirit, — the light
of inexhaustible human love. Every sound of
human joy and of human sorrow finds a deep-
resounding echo in his bosom. In every man,
he loves his humanity only, not his superiority.
The avowed object of all his literary labors was
to raise up again the down-sunken faith in God,
Virtue, and Immortality ; and, in an egotistical,
revolutionary age, to warm again our human
sympathies, which have now grown cold. And
not less boundless is his love for nature, — for
this outward, beautiful world. He embraces it
all in his arms."

" Yes," answered Flemming, almost taking
the words out of the stranger's mouth, " for in
his mind all things become idealized. He seems
to describe himself when he describes the hero
of his Titan, as a child, rocking in a high wind
upon the branches of a full-blossomed apple-tree,
and, as its summit, blown abroad by the wind,
now sunk him in deep green, and now tossed

A ROMANCE. 37

him aloft in deep blue and glancing sunshine, —
in his imagination stood that tree gigantic ; — it
grew alone in the universe, as if it were the tree
of eternal life ; its roots struck down into the
abyss ; the white and red clouds hung as blossoms
upon it ; the moon as fruit ; the little stars spar-
kled like dew, and Albano reposed in its meas-
ureless summit ; and a storm swayed the summit
out of Day into Night, and out of Night into Day."
"Yet the spirit of love," interrupted the Fran-
conian, " was not weakness, but strength. It was
united in him with great manliness. The sword
of his spirit had been forged and beaten by
poverty. Its temper had been tried by a thirty
years' war. It was not broken, not even blunt-
ed, but rather strengthened and sharpened, by
the blows it gave and received. And, possess-
ing this noble spirit of humanity, endurance, and
self-denial, he made literature his profession ;
as if he had been divinely commissioned to write.
He seems to have cared for nothing else, to
have thought of nothing else, than living quietly
and making books. He says that he felt it his
duty, not to enjoy, nor to acquire, but to write ;
and boasted that he had made as many books
as he had lived years."

38 HYPERION,

" And what do you Germans consider the
prominent characteristics of his genius ? "

" Most undoubtedly, his wild imagination and
his playfulness. He throws over all things a
strange and magic coloring. You are startled
at the boldness and beauty of his figures and il-
lustrations, which are scattered everywhere with
a reckless prodigality ; — multitudinous, like the
blossoms of early summer, — and as fragrant
and beautiful. With a thousand extravagances
are mingled ten thousand beauties of thought
and expression, which kindle the reader's imag-
ination, and lead it onward in a bold flight,
through the glow of sunrise and sunset, and the
dewy coldness and starlight of summer nights.
He is difficult to understand, — intricate, —
strange, — drawing his illustrations from every
by-corner of science, art, and nature, — a com-
et, among the bright stars of German hterature.
When you read his works, it is as if you were
climbing a high mountain, in merry company, to
see the sun rise. At times you are enveloped
in mist, — the morning wind sweeps by you with
a shout, — you hear the far-off muttering thun-
ders. Wide beneath you spreads the landscape,
— field, meadow, town, and winding river. The

A ROMANCE. 39

ringing of distant church-bells, or the sound of
solemn village clock, reaches you ; — then arises
the sweet and manifold fragrance of flowers, —
the birds begin to sing, — the vapors roll away,
— up comes the glorious sun, — you revel like
the lark in the sunshine and bright blue heaven,
and all is a delirious dream of soul and sense, —
when suddenly a friend at your elbow laughs
aloud, and offers you a piece of Bologna sausage.
As in real life, so in his writings, — the serious
and the comic, the sublime and the grotesque,
the pathetic and the ludicrous, are mingled to-
gether. At times he is sententious, energetic,
simple ; then again, obscure and diffuse. His
thoughts are like mummies embalmed in spices,
and wrapped about with curious envelopments ;
but within these the thoughts themselves are
kings. At times glad, beautiful images, airy
forms, move by you, graceful, harmonious ; —
at times the glaring, wild-looking fancies, chained
together by hyphens, brackets, and dashes, brave
and base, high and low, all in their motley dress-
es, go sweeping down the dusty page, like the
galley-slaves that sweep the streets of Rome,
where you may chance to see the nobleman and
the peasant manacled together."

40 HYPERION,

Flemming smiled at the German's warmtn,
to which the presence of the lady, and the Lau-
benheimer wine, seemed each to have contrib-
uted something, and then said : —

"Better an outlaw than not free! — These
are his own words. And thus he changes at
his will. Like the God Thor, of the old North-
ern mythology, he now holds forth the seven
bright stars in the bright heaven above us, and
now hides himself in clouds, and pounds awaj
with his great hammer."

" And yet this is not aflectation in him," re-
joined the German. "It is his nature, it is
Jean Paul. And the figures and ornaments of
his style, wild, fantastic, and ofltiraes startling,
like those in Gothic cathedrals, are not merely
what they seem, but massive coignes and but-
tresses, which support the fabric. Remove them,
and the roof and walls fall in. And through
these gargoyles, these wild faces, these images
of beasts and men carved upon spouts and gut-
ters, flow out, like gathered rain, the bright,
abundant thoughts, that have fallen from heaven.
And all he does is done with a kind of serious
playfulness. He is a sea-monster, disporting
iiimself on the broad ocean ; his very sport is

A ROMANCE. 41

earnest ; there is something majestic and serious
ahout it. In every thing there is strength, a
rough good-nature, all sunshine overhead, and
underneath the heavy moaning of the sea. Well
may he be called 'Jean Paul, the Only-One.' "

With such discourse the hour of dinner pass-
ed ; and after dinner Flemming went to the ca-
thedral. They were singing vespers. A beadle,
dressed in blue, with a cocked hat, and a crim-
son sash and collar, was strutting, like a turkey,
along the aisles. This important gentleman
conducted Flemming through the church, and
showed him the choir, with its heavy-sculp-
tured stalls of oak, and the beautiful figures in
brown stone over the bishops' tombs. He
then led him, by a side-door, into the old and
ruined cloisters of St. Willigis. Through the
low Gothic arches the sunshine streamed upon
the pavement of tombstones, whose images and
inscriptions are mostly effaced by the footsteps
of many generations. There stands the tomb of
Frauenlob, the Minnesinger. His face is sculp-
tured on an entablature in the wall ; a fine, strong-
ly-marked, and serious countenance. Below it
is a bas-relief, representing the poet's funeral.
He is carried to his grave by ladies, whose praise
he sang, and thereby won the name of Frauenlob.

42 HYPERION,

" This, then," said Flemming, " is the grave,
not of Praise-God Bare-bones, but of Praise-tbe-
Ladies Meissen, who wrote songs ' somewhat ol
lust, and somewhat of love.' But where sleeps
the dust of his rival and foe, sweet Master Bar-
tholomew Rainbow ? "

He meant this for an aside ; but the turkey-
cock picked it up and answered : —

" I do not know. He did not belong to this
parish."

I will not prolong this journey, for I am weary
and way-worn, and would fain be at Heidelberg
with my readers and my hero. It was already
night when he reached the Manheim gate, and
drove down the long Hauptstrasse so slowly,
that it seemed to him endless. The shops were
lighted on each side of the street, and he saw
faces at the windows here and there, and figures
passing in the lamp-light, visible for a moment
and then swallowed up in the darkness. The
thoughts that filled his mind were strange ; as are
always the thoughts of a traveller who enters for
the first time a strange city. This little world
had been going on for centuries before he came ;
and would go on for centuries after he was gone.
Of all the thousands who inhabited it he knew

A ROMANCE. 43

nothing ; and what knew they, or thought, of the
stranger, who, in that close postchaise, weary
with travel, and chilled by the evening wind, was
slowly rumbling over the paved street ? Truly,
this world can go on without us, if we would but
think so. If it had been a hearse instead of a
postchaise, it would have been all the same to-
the people of Heidelberg, — though by no means
the same to Paul Flemming.

But at the farther end of the city, near the
Castle and the Carls-Thor, one warm heart was
waiting to receive him ; and this was the German
heart of his friend, the Baron of Hohenfels, with
whom he was to pass the winter in Heidelberg.
No sooner had the carriage stopped at the iron-
grated gate, and the postilion blown his horn, to
announce the arrival of a traveller, than the Bar-
on was seen among the servants at the door ;
and, a few moments afterwards, the two long-
absent friends were m each other's arms, and
Flemming received a kiss upon each cheek, and
another on the mouth, as the pledge and seal
of the German's friendship. They held each
other long by the hand, and looked into each
other's face, and saw themselves in each other's
eyes, both literally and figuratively ; literally, inas-

44 HYPKRION,

much as the images were there ; and figuratively,
inasmuch as each was imagining what the other
thought of him, after the lapse of some years.
In friendly hopes and questionings and answers,
the evening glided away at the supper-table,
where many more things were discussed than
the roasted hare and the Johannisberger ; and
they sat late into the night, convei'sing of the
thoughts and feelmgs and delights which fill the
hearts of young men who have abeady enjoyed
and suffered, and hoped and been disappointed.

A ROMANCE. 45

CHAPTER VI.

HEIDELBERG AND THE BARON.

High and hoar on the forehead of the Jelten-
biihl stands the Castle of Heidelberg. Behind
it rise the oak-crested hills of the Geissberg and
the Kaiserstuhl ; and in front, from the wide
terrace of masonry, you can almost throw a stone
upon the roofs of the town, so close do they lie
beneath. Above this terrace rises the broad
front of the chapel of Saint Udalrich. On the
left stands the slender octagon tower of the
horologe ; and on the right, a huge round tower,
battered and shattered by the mace of war,
shores up with its broad shoulders the beautiful
palace and garden-terrace of Elizabeth, wife of
the Count Palatine Frederick. In the rear are
older palaces and towers, forming a vast, irregular
quadrangle ; — Rodolph's ancient castle, with its
Gothic gloriette and fantastic gables ; the Giant's

46 HYPERION,

Tower, guarding the drawbridge over the moat,
the Rent Tower, with the hnden-trees growing
on its summit ; and the magnificent Rittersaal
of Otho-Henry, Count Palatine of the Rhine
and Grand Seneschal of the Holy Roman Empire.
From the gardens behind the castle, you pass
under the archway of the Giant's Tower into
the great court-yard. The diverse architecture
of different ages strikes the eye ; and curious
sculptures. In niches on the wall of Saint Udal-
rich's chapel stand rows of knights in armor,
broken and dismembered ; and on the front of
Otho's Rittersaal, the heroes of Jewish history
and classic fable. You enter the open and deso-
late chambers of the ruin ; and on every side are
medallions and family arms ; the Globe of the
Empire and the Golden Fleece, or the Eagle
of the Caesars, resting on the escutcheons of
Bavaria and the Palatinate. Over the windows
and door-ways and chimney-pieces are sculp-
tures and mouldmgs of exquisite workmanship ;
and the eye is bewildered by the profusion of
caryatides, and arabesques, and rosettes, and
fan-like flutings, and garlands of fruits and flow-
ers and acorns, and bullocks' heads with draper-
ies of foliage, and muzzles of lions, holding rings

A ROMANCE. 47

in their teeth. The cunnmg hand of Art was
busy for six centuries in raising and adorning
these walls ; the mailed hands of Time and War
have defaced and overthrown them in less tlian
two. Next to the Alhamtra of Granada, the
Castle of Heidelberg is the most magnificent ruin
of the Middle Ages.

In the valley below flows the rushing stream
of the Neckar. Close from its margin, on the
opposite side, rises the Mountain of AU-Sain'ts,
crowned with the ruins of a convent ; and up the
valley stretches the mountain-curtain of the Oden-
wald. So close and many are the hills which
eastward shut the valley in, that the river seems
a lake. But westward it opens upon the broad
plain of the Rhine, like the mouth of a trumpet ;
and like the blast of a trumpet is at times the
wintry wind through this narrow mountain-pass.
The blue Alsatian hills rise beyond ; and, on a
platform or strip of level land, between the Neck-
ar and the mountains, right under the castle,
stands the town of Heidelberg ; as the old song
says, " a pleasant town, when it has done rain-
ing."

Something of this did Paul Flemming behold,
when he rose the next morning and looked from

48 HYPERION,

his window. It was a warm, vapory morning,
and a struggle was going on between the mist
and the rising sun. The sun had taken the hill-
tops, but the mist still kept possession of the
valley and the town. The steeple of the great
church rose through a dense mass of snow-white
clouds ; and eastward, on the hills, the dim va-
pors were rolling across the windows of the ruined
castle, like the fiery smoke of a fierce conflagra-
tion. It seemed to him an image of the rising
of the sun of Truth on a benighted world ; its
light streamed through the ruins of. centuries ;
and, down b the valley of Time, the cross on
the Christian church caught its rays, though the
priests were singing in mist and darkness below.

In the warm breakfast-room he found the
Baron waiting for him. He was lying upon a
sofa, in morning gown and purple-velvet slippers,
both with flowers upon them. He had a guitar
in his hand, and a pipe in his mouth, at the same
time smoking, playing, and humming his favorite
song from Goethe : —

" The water rushed, the water swelled,
A fisher eat thereby."

Flemming could hardly refrain from laughing,
at the sight of his friend ; and told him it reminded

A ROMANCE. 49

him of a street-musician he once saw in Aix-la-
Chapelle, who was playing upon six instruments
at once ; having a helmet with bells on his head,
a Pan's-reed in his cravat, a fiddle in his hand,
a triangle on his knee, cymbals on his heels, and
on his back a bass-drum, which he played with
his elbows. . To tell the truth, the Baron of
Hohenfels was rather a miscellaneous youth,
rather a universal genius. He pursued all things
with eagerness, but for a short time only ; music,
poetry, painting, pleasure, even the study of the
Pandects. His feelings were keenly alive to
the enjoyment of life. His great defect was,
that he was too much in love with human nature.
But by the power of imagination, in him, the
bearded goat was changed to a bright Capricor-
nus ; — no longer an animal on earth, but a con-
stellation in heaven. An easy and indolent dis-
position made him gentle and childlike m his
manners ; and, in short, the beauty of his charac-
ter, hke that of the precious opal, was owing to
a defect in its organization. His person was tall
and slightly built ; his hair light ; and his eyes
olue, and as beautiful as those of a girl. In the
tones of his voice there was something indescri-
bably gentle and winning ; and he spoke the Ger-

so HYPERION,

man language with the soft, musical accent of
his native province of Curland. In his manners,
if he had not " Antinous' easy sway," he had at
least an easy sway of his own. Such, in lew
words, was the bosom friend of Flemming.

" And what do you think of Heidelberg and
the old castle ? " said he, as they seated them-
selves at the breakfast-table.

" Last night the town seemed very long to
me," replied Flemming ; " and as to the castle,
I have as yet had but a glimpse of it through the
mist. They tell me there is nothing finer in its
way, than this magnificent ruin ; and I have
no doubt I shall find it so. Only I wish the
stone were gray, and not red. But, red or gray,
I foresee that I shaU waste many a long hour in
its desolate halls. Pray, does any body live there
now-a-days ? "

" No body," answered the Baron, " but the
man who shows the Heidelberg Tun, and a
Frenchman, who has been there sketching ever
since the year eighteen hundred and ten. He
has, moreover, written a super-magnificent de-
scription of the ruin, in which he says, that dur-
ing the day only birds of prey disturb it with
their piercing cries, and at night, screech-owls

A ROMANCE 51

and other fallow deer. You must buy his book
and his sketches."

" Yes, the quotation and the tone of your
voice will certainly persuade me so to do."

" Take his or none, my friend, for you will
find no others. And seriously, his sketches are
very good. There is one on the wall there,
which is beautiful, save and except that straddle-
bug figure among the bushes in the corner."

" But is there no ghost, no haunted chamber
in the old castle .' " asked Flemming, after cast-
ing a hasty glance at the picture.

" O, certainly," replied the Baron ; " there
are two. There is the ghost of the Virgin Mary
in Ruprecht's Tower, and the Devil in the Dun-
geon."

" Ha ! that is grand ! " exclaimed Flemming,
with evident delight. " Tell me the whole story,
quickly"! I am as curious as a child."

" It is a tale of the times of Louis le Debon-
naire," said the Baron, with a smile ; " a mouldy
tradition of a credulous age. His brother Fred-
erick lived here in the castle with him, and had a
flirtation with Leonore von Luzelstein, a lady of
the court, whom he afterwards despised, and was
consequently most cordially hated by her. From

52 HYPERION,

political motives, he was equally hateful to certain
petty German tyrants, who, in order to effect his
ruin, accused him of heresy. But his brother
Louis would not deliver him up to their fury,
and they resolved to effect by stratagem what
they could not by intrigue. Accordingly, Leo-
nore von Luzelstein, disguised as the Virgin Mary,
and the father confessor of the Elector, in the
costume of Satan, made their appearance in the
Elector's bed-chamber at midnight, and fright-
ened him so horribly, that he consented to deliv-
er up his brother into the hands of two Black
Knights, who pretended to be ambassadors from
the Vehm-Gericht. They proceeded together to
Frederick's chamber; where, luckily, old Gem-
mingen, a brave soldier, kept guard behind the
arras. The monk went foremost in his Satanic
garb ; but, no sooner had he set foot in the prince's
bed-chamber, than the brave Gemminge'n drew
his sword, and said quaintly, ' Die, wretch ! '
and so he died. The rest took to their heels,
aiid were heard of no more. And now the souls
of Leonore and the monk haunt the scene of
their midnight crime. You will find the story in
the Frenchman's book, worked up with a kind
of red-morocco and burnt-cork sublimity, and

A ROMANCE. 53

great melo-dramatic clanking of chains, and
hooting of owls, and other fallow deer ! "

" After breakfast," said Flemming, " we will
go up to the castle. I must get acquainted with
this mirror of owls, this modem Till Eulenspie-
gel. See what a glorious morning we have !
It is truly a wondrous winter ! what summer sun-
shme ! what soft Venetian fogs ! How the wan-
ton, treacherous air coquets with the old gray-
beard trees ! Such weather makes the grass
and our beards grow apace ! But we have an
old saying in English, that vpinter never rots in
the sky. So he will come down at last in his
old-fashioned mealy coat. We shall have snow
in sprmg ; and the blossoms will be all snow-
flakes. And afterwards a summer, which will
be no summer, but, as Jean Paul says, only a
winter painted green. Is it not so } "

" Unless I am much deceived in the climate
of Heidelberg," replied the Baron, "we shall
not have to wait long for snow. We have sud-
den changes here ; and I should not marvel much,
if it snowed before night."

" The greater reason for making good use
of the morning sunshine, then. Let us hasten
to the castle, after which my heart yearns."

54 HrPERION,

CHAPTER VII.

LIVES OF SCHOLARS.

The forebodings of the Baron proved true
In the afternoon the weather changed. The
western wind began to blow, and drew a cloud-
veil over the face of heaven, as a breath does
over the human face in a mirror. Soon the
snow began to fall. Athwart the distant land-
scape it swept like a white mist. The storm-wind
came from the Alsatian hills, and struck the
dense clouds aslant through the air. And ever
faster fell the snow, a roaring torrent from those
mountainous clouds. The setting sun glared
wildly from the summit of the hills, and sank
like a burning ship at sea, wrecked in the tem-
pest. Thus the evening set in ; and winter
stood at the gate wagging his white and shaggy
beard, like an old harper chanting an old rhyme :
— " How cold it is ! how cold it is ! "

" I like such a storm as this," said Flem-

A ROMANCE. 55

nung, who stood at the window, looking out
into the tempest and the gathering darkness.
" The silent falling of snow is to me one. of the
most solemn thmgs in nature. The fall of au-
tumnal leaves does not so much affect me. But
the driving storm is grand. It startles me ; it
awakens me. It is wild and woful, like my own
soul. I cannot help thinking of the sea ; how
the waves run and toss their arms about, — and
the wind plays on those great sonorous harps,
the shrouds and masts of ships. Winter is here
in earnest ! How the old churl whistles and
threshes the snow ! Sleet and rain are falling
too. • Already the trees are bearded with icicles ;
and the two broad branches of yonder pine look
like the white mustache of some old German
baron."

" And to-morrow it will look more wintry
still," said his friend. " We shall wake up and
find that the frost-spirit has been at work all
night building Gothic cathedrals on our windows,
just as the Devil built the Cathedral of Cologne.
So draw the curtains, and come, sit here by the
warm fire."

" And now," said Flemming, having done as
his friend desired, " tell me something of Hei-

56 HYPERION,

delberg and its University. I suppose we shall
lead about as solitary and studious a life here as
we did of yore in little Goltingen, with nothing
to amuse us, save our own day-dreams."

" Pretty much so," replied the Baron ; " which
cannot fail to please you, since you are in pur-
suit of tranquillity. As to the University, it
is, as you know, one of the oldest in Germany.
It was founded in the fourteenth century by the
Count Palatine Ruprecht, and had in the first
year more than five hundred studerits, all busily
committing to memory, after the old scholastic
wise, the rules of grammar versified by Alexan-
der de Villa Dei, and the extracts made by
Peter the Spaniard from Michel Psellus's Synop-
sis of Aristotle's Organon, and the Categories,
with Porphyry's Commentaries. Truly, I do
not much wonder, that Erigena Scotus should
have been put to death by his scholars with their
penknives. They must have been pushed to
the very verge of despair."

" What a strange picture a university presents
to the imagination ! The lives of scholars in
their cloistered stillness ; — literary men of re-
tired habits, and professors who study sixteen
hours a day, and never see the world but on a

A ROMANCE. 57

Sunday. Nature has, no doubt, for some wise
purpose, placed in their hearts this love of htera-
ry labor and seclusion. Otherwise, who would
feed the undying lamp of thought .'' But for
such men as these, a blast of wind through the
chinks and crannies of this old world, or the
flapping of a conqueror's banner, would blow it
out for ever. The light of the soul is easily
extinguished. And whenever I reflect upon
these things, I become aware of the great impor-
tance, in a nation's history, of the individual
fame of scholars and literary men. I fear that
it is far greater than the world is willing to ac
knowledge ; or, perhaps I should say, than the
world has thought of acknowledging. Blot out
from England's history the names of Chaucer,
Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton only, and how
much of her glory would you blot out with them !
Take from Italy such names as Dante, Petrarch,
Boccaccio, Michel Angelo, and Raphael, and
how much would be wanting to the completeness
of her glory ! How would the history of Spain
look, if the leaves were torn out on which are
written the names of Cervantes, Lope de Vega,
and Calderon ? What would be the fame of
Portugal, without her Camoens ; of France,

58 HYPKRION,

without her Racine, and Rabelais, and Voltaire ;
or Germany, without her Martin Luther, her
Goethe, and her Schiller ? — Nay, what were the
nations of old, without their philosophers, poets,
and historians ? Tell me, do not these men, in
all ages and in all places, emblazon with bright
colors the armorial bearings of their country ?
Yes, and far more than this ; for in all ages and
in all places they give humanity assurance of its
greatness, and say, — ' Call not this time or peo-
ple wholly barbarous ; for thus much, even then
and there, could the human mind achieve ! ' But
the boisterous world has hardly thought of ac-
knowledging all this. Therein it has shown
itself somewhat ungrateful. Else, whence the
great reproach, the general scorn, the loud de
rision, with which, to take a familiar example,
the monks of the Middle Ages are regarded ?
That they slept their lives away is most untrue.
For in an age when books were few, — so few,
so precious, that they were often chained to
their oaken shelves with iion chains, like galley-
slaves to their benches, — these men, with their
laborious hands, copied upon parchment all the
lore and wisdom of the past, and transmitted it
to us. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that,

A ROMANCE. 5S)

but for these monks, not one line of the classics
would have reached our day. Surely, then,
we can pardon something to those superstitious
ages, perhaps even the mysticism of the scholas-
tic philosophy ; since, after all, we can find no
harm in it, only the mistaking of the possible for
the real, and the high aspirings of the human
mind after a long-sought and unknown somewhat.
I think the name of Martin Luther, the monk of
Wittemberg, alone sufficient to redeem all monk-
hood from the reproach of laziness. If this will
not, perhaps the vast foHos of Thomas Aquinas
will ; — or the countless manuscripts, still treas
ured in old libraries, whose yeUow and wrinkled
pages remind one of the hands that wrote them,
and the faces that once bent over them."

" An eloquent homily," said the Baron, laugh-
ing ; " a most touching appeal in behalf of suffer-
ing humanity ! For my part, I am no friend
of this entire seclusion from the world. It has
a very injurious effect on the mind of a scholar.
The Chinese proverb is true ; a single conversa-
tion across the table with a wise man is better
than ten years' mere study ©f books. I have
known some of these literary men who thus
shut themselves up from the world. Their

60 HYPERION,

minds never come in contact with those of their
fellow-men. They read httle. They think
much. They are mere dreamers. They know
not what is new nor what is old. They often
strike upon trains of thought, which stand writ-
ten in good authors some century or so hack,
and are even current in the mouths of men around
them. But they know it not ; and imagine they
are bringing forward something very original,
when they publish their thoughts."

" It reminds me," replied Flemming, " of
what Dr. Johnson said of Goldsmith, when he
proposed to travel abroad in order to bring home
improvements : — ' He will bring home a wheel-
barrow, and call that an improvement.' It is
unfortunately the same with some of these schol-
ars."

"And the worst of it is," said the Baron,
" that, in solitude, some fixed idea will often
take root in the mind, and grow till it overshadow
all one's thoughts. To this must all opinions
come ; no thought can enter there, which shall
not be wedded to the fixed idea. There it re-
mains, and grows'. It is like the watchman's
wife, in the Tower of Waiblingen, who grew to
such a size, that she could not get down the

A ROMANCE. 61

narrow staircase ; and when her husband died,
his successor was forced to marry the fat widow
in the Tower."

" I remember an old English comedy," said
Flemming, laughing, " in which a scholar is de-
scribed as ' a creature that can strike fire in the
morning at his tinder-box, — put on a pair of
lined slippers, — sit ruminating till dinner, and
then go to his meat when the bell rings ; — one
that hath a peculiar gift in a cough, and a hcense
to spit ; — or, if you will have him defined by
negatives, he is one that cannot make a good
leg, — one that cannot eat a mess of broth
cleanly.' What think you of tliat ? "

" That is just as people are always repre-
sented in English comedy," said the Baron.
" The portrait is overcharged, — caricatured."

"And yet," continued Flemming, "no longer
ago than yesterday, in the preface of a work by
a Professor of Philosophy in the University of
Halle. I read this passage."

He opened a book and read.

" Here in Halle, where we have no public
garden and no Tivoli, no London Exchange,
no Paris Chamber of Deputies, no Berlin nor
Vienna theatres, no Strasburg Minster nor

62 HYPERION,

Salzburg Alps, no Grecian ruins nor fantastic
Catholicism, — m fine, nothing, which, after one's
daily task is finished, can divert and refresh
him, without his knowing or caring how, — I
consider the sight of a proof-sheet quite as de-
lightful as a walk in the Prater of Vienna. I fill
my pipe very quietly, take out my inkstand and
pens, seat myself in the corner of my sofa, read,
correct, and now for the first time really set
about thinking what I have written. To see
this origin of a book, this metamorphosis of man-
uscript into print, is a delight to which I give
myself up entirely. Look you, — this melancholy
pleasure, which would have furnished the depart-
ed Voss with worthy matter for more than one
blessed Idyl (the more so, as on such occa-
sions I am generally arrayed in a morning gown,
though, I am sorry to say, not a calamanco one,
with great flowers) , — this melancholy pleasure
has already grown here in Halle to a sweet,
pedantic habit. Since I began my hermit's
life here, I have been printing ; and so long as
I remain here, I shall keep on printing. In all
probability, I shall die with a proof-sheet in my
hand."

"This," said Flemming, closing the book,

A ROMANCE, 63

"is no caricature by a writer of comedy, but
a portrait by a man's own hand. We can see
by it how easily, under certain circumstances,
one may glide into habits of seclusion, and in
a kind of undress, slipshod hardihood, with a
pipe and a proof-sheet, defy the world. Into
this state scholars have too often fallen ; thus
giving some ground for the prevalent opinion,
that scholarship and rusticity are inseparable.
To me, I confess, it is painful to see the scholar
and the world assume so often a hostile attitude,
and set each other at defiance. Surely, it is a
characteristic trait of a great and liberal mind,
that it recognizes humanity in all its forms and
conditions. I am a student ; — and always,
when I sit alone at night, I recognize the divinity
of the student, as she reveals herself to me in
the flame of the midnight lamp. But, because
solitude and books are not unpleasant to me, —
nay, wished-for, — sought after, — shall I say
to my brother, ' Thou fool ! ' — Shall I take the
world by the beard, and say, ' Thou art old, and
mad ! ' — Shall I look society in the face, and
say, ' Thou art heartless ! ' — Heartless ! Be-
ware of that word ! The good Jean Paul says
very wisely, that ' Life in every shape should

64 HYPERION,

be precious to us, for the same reason that the
Turks carefully collect eveiy scrap of paper that
comes in their way, because the name of God
may be written upon it.' Nothing is more true
than this, yet nothing more neglected ! "

"If it be painful to see this misunderstanding
between scholars and the world," said the Baron,
" I think it is still more painful to see the pri-
vate sufferings of authors by profession. How
many have languished in poverty, how many
died broken-hearted, how many gone mad with
over-excitement and disappointed hopes ! How
instructive and painfully interesting are their
lives ! with so many weaknesses, — so much to
pardon, — so much to pity, — so much to ad-
mire ! I think he was not so far out of the way,
who said, that, next to the Newgate Calendar,
the Biography of Authors is the most sickening
chapter in the history of man."

" It is indeed enough to make one's heart
ache ! " interrupted Flemming. " Only think
of Johnson and Savage, rambling about the
streets of London at midnight, without a place
to sleep in ; Otway starved to death ; Collins
mad, and howling like a dog, through the aisles
of Chichester Cathedral, at the sound of church

A ROMANCE. 65

music ! and Goldsmith, strutting up Fleet Street
in his peach-blossom coat, to knock a bookseller
over the pate with one of his own volumes ; and
then, in his poverty, about to marry his landlady
in Green Arbour Court."

" A life of sorrow and privation, a hard life,
indeed, do these poor devil authors have of it,"
replied the Baron ; " and then at last must get
them to the workhouse, or creep away into
some hospital to die."

" After all," said Flamming, with a sigh, " pov-
erty is not a crime."

" But something worse," interrupted the Bar-
on ; "as Dufresny said, when he married his
laundress, because he could not pay her bill
He was the author, as you know, of the opera
of Lot ; at whose representation the great pun
was made ; — I say the great pun, as we say
the great Tun of Heidelberg. As one of the per-
formers was singing the line, ' U amour a vaincu
Loth,'' (vingt .. culottes,) a voice from the pit
cried out, ' QuHl en donne une a I'auteur ! ' "

Flemming laughed at the unseasonable jest ;
and then, after a short pause, continued : —

" And yet, if you look closely at the causes
of these calamities of authors, you will find that
5

66 HYPERION,

many of them spring from false and exaggeratea
ideas of poetry and the poetic character ; and
from disdain of common sense, upon which all
character, worth having, is founded. This comes
from keeping aloof from the world, apart from
our fellow-men ; disdainful of society, as frivo-
lous. By too much sitting still the body becomes
unhealthy ; and soon the mind. This is nature's
law. She wiU never see her children wronged.
If the mind, which rules the body, ever forgets
itself so far as to trample upon its slave, the
slave is never generous enough to forgive the
injury ; but will rise and smite its oppressor
Thus has many a monarch mind been dethroned."
" After all," said the Baron, " we must par
don much to men of genius. A delicate organ-
ization renders them keenly susceptible to pain
and pleasure. And then they idealize every
thing ; and, in the moonlight of fancy, even the
deformity of vice seems beautiful."

" And this you think should be forgiven ? "
" At all events, it is forgiven. The world
loves a spice of wickedness. Talk as you will
about principle, impulse is more attractive, even
when it goes too far. The passions of youth,
like unhooded hawks, fly high, with musical

A ROMANCE. 67

bells upon their jesses ; and we forget the cruelty
of the sport in the dauntless bearing of the gal-
lant bird."

" And thus do the world and society corrupt
the scholar ! " exclaimed Flemming.

Here the Baron rang, and ordered a bottle of
Prince Metternich. He then very slowly filled
his pipe, and began to smoke. Fleraihing was
lost in a day-dream.

68 HYPERION,

CHAPTER VIII.

LITERARY TAME.

Time has a Doomsday-Book, upon whose
pages he is continually recording illustrious names
But, as often as a new name is written there, an
old one disappears. Only a few stand in illumi-
nated characters, never to be effaced. These
are the high nobility of Nature, — Lords of the
Public Domain of Thought. Posterity shall
never question their titles. But those, whose
fame lives only in the indiscreet opinion of un-
wise men, must soon be as well forgotten as if
they had never been. To this great oblivion
must most men com . It is better, therefore,
that they should soon make up their minds to
this ; well knowing, that, as their bodies must
ere long be resolved into dust again, and their
graves tell no tales of them ; so must their names
likewise be utterly forgotten, and their most

A ROMANCE. 69

cherished thoughts, purposes, and opinions have
no longer ^n individual being among men, but be
resolved and incorporated into the universe of
thought. If, then, the imagination can trace the
noble dust of heroes, till we find it stopping a
beer-barrel, and know that

" Imperial Csesar, dead and turned to clay,
May stop a hole to keep the wind away " ;

not less can it trace the noble thoughts of great
men, till it finds them mouldered into the common
dust of conversation, and used to stop men's
mouths, and patch up theories, to keep out the
flaws of opinion. Such, for example, are ail
popular adages and wise proverbs, which are
now resolved into the common mass of thought ;
their authors forgotten, and having no more an
individual being among men.

It is better, therefore, that men should soon
make up their minds to be forgotten, and look
about them, or within them, for some higher mo-
tive, in what they do, than the approbation of
men, which is Fame ; namely, their duty ; that
they should be constantly and quietly at work,
each in his sphere, regardless of effects, and
leaving their fame to take care of itself. Diffi-
cult must this indeed be, in our imperfection ;

70 Ki'PERlON,

impossible, perhaps, to achieve it wholly. Yei
the resolute, the indomitable will of man can
achieve much, — at times, even this victory over
himself ; being persuaded that fame comes only
when deserved, and then is as inevitable as des-
tmy, for it is destiny.

It has become a common saying, that men
of genius are always in advance of their age ;
which is true. There is something equally true,
yet not so common ; namely, that, of these men
of genius, the best and bravest are in advance
not only of their own age, but of every age.
As the German prose-poet says, every possible
future is behind them. We cannot suppose that
a period of time will ever arrive, when the world,
or any considerable portion of it, shall have come
up abreast with these great minds, so as fully to
comprehend them.

And, O, how majestically they walk m his-
tory ; some like the sun, " with all his travel-
elling glories round him " ; others wrapped in
gloom, yet glorious as a night with stars !
Through the else silent darkness of the past,
the spirit hears their slow and solemn footsteps.
Onward they pass, like those hoary elders seen
in the sublime vision of an earthly paradise,

A ROMANCE 71

attendant angels bearing golden lights before
them, and, above and behind, the whole air
painted with seven listed colors, as from the trail
of pencils !

And yet, on earth, these men were not hap-
py, — not all happy, in the outward circumstance
of their lives. They .were in want, and in pain,
and familiar with prison-bars, and the damp,
weeping walls of dungeons ! O, I have looked
with wonder upon those, who, in sorrow and
privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness,
which is the shadow of death, have worked right
on to the accomplishment of their great purpos
es ; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling
much ; — and then, with shattered nerves, and
sinews ■ all unstrung, have laid themselves down
in the grave, and slept the sleep of death, — and
the world talks of them, while they sleep !

It would seem, indeed, as if all their sufferings
had but sanctified them ; as if the death-angel,
in passing, had touched them with the hem of
his garment, and made them holy ; as if the
hand of disease had been stretched out over
them only to make the sign of the cross upon
their souls ! And as in the sun's eclipse we can
behold the great stars shining in the heavens,

72 HYPERION,

SO in this life-eclipse have these men beheld the
lights of the great eternity, burning solemnly and
forever !

This was Flemming's reverie. It was bro-
ken by the voice of the Baron, suddenly exclaim-
ng: —

" An angel is flying over the house ! — Here,
in this goblet, fragrant as the honey of Hymettus,
fragrant as the wild flowers in the Angel's Mead-
ow, I drink to the divinity of thy dreams."

" This is all sunshine," said Flemming, as he
drank. " The wine of the Prince, and the
Prince of wines. By the way, did you ever
read that brilliant Italian dithyrambic, Redi's
Bacchus in Tuscany .' an ode which seems to
have been poured out of the author's soul, as
from a golden pitcher,

' Filled with the wine
Of the vine
Benign,
That flames so red in Sansovine.'

He calls the Montepulciano the king of all wines."
"Prince Metternich," said die Baron, "is
greater than any king in Italy ; and I wonder
that this precious wine has never inspired a Ger-
man poet to write a Bacchus on the Rhine.

A ROMANCE. 73

Many little songs we have on this theme, but
none very extraordinary. The best are Max
Schenkendorf's Song of the Rhine, and the
Song of Rhine Wine, by Claudius, a poet who
never drank Rhenish without sugar. We will
drink for him a blessing on the Rhine."

And again the crystal lips of the goblets kissed
each other, with a musical chime, as of evening
bells at vintage-time from the villages on the
Rhine. Of a truth, I do not much wonder
that the German poet Schiller loved to write
by candle-light with a bottle of Rhine-wine upon
the table. Nor dc I wonder at the worthy
schoolmaster, Roger Ascham, when he says, in
one of his letters from Germany to Mr. John
Raven, of John's College : " Tell Mr. Maden
I will drink with him now a carouse of wine ;
and would to God he had a vessel of Rhenish
wine; and perchance, when I come to Cam-
bridge, I will so provide here, that every year I
will have a little piece of Rhenish wine." Nor,
in fine, do I wonder at the German emperor
of whom he speaks in another letter to the same
John Raven, and says, " The emperor drank
the best that I ever saw ; he had his head in
the glass five times as long as any of us, and

/'4 HYPERION,

never drank less than a good quart at once of
Rhenish wine."

" But to resume our old theme of scholars
and their whereabout," said the Baron, with an
unusual glow, caught, no doubt, from the golden
sunshine, imprisoned, like the student Anselmus,
in the glass bottle ; " where should the scholar
live ? In solitude, or in society ? in the green
stillness of the country, where he can hear the
heart of Nature beat ; or in the dark, gray town,
where he can hear and feel the throbbing heart
of man ? I will make answer for him, and say,
in the dark, gray town. ■ O, they do greatly
err, who think that the stars are all the poetry
which cities have ; and therefore that the poet's
only dwelling should be in sylvan sohtudes, under
the green roof of trees. Beautiful, no doubt,
are all the forms of Nature, when transfigured
by tlie miraculous power of poetry ; hamlets
and harvest-fields, and nut-brown waters, flowing
ever under the forest, vast and shadowy, witl
all the sights and sounds of rural life. But after
all, what are these but the decorations and paint-
ed scenery in the great theatre of human life }
What are they but the coarse materials of the
poet's song ? Glorious indeed is the world of

A ROMANCE. 75

God around us, but more glorious the world of
God within us. There lies the Land of Song ;
there lies the poet's native land. The river of
life, that flows through streets tumultuous, bear-
ing along so many gallant hearts, so many wrecks
of humanity ; — the many homes and house-
holds, each a little world in itself, revolving
round its fireside, as a central sun ; all forms of
human joy and suffering, brought into that nar
row compass ; — and to be in this, and be a part
of this ; acting, thinking, rejoicing, sorrowing,
with his fellow-men ; — such, such should be the
poet's life. If he would describe the world, he
should live in the world. The mind of the
scholar, if you would have it large and liberal,
should come in contact with >other minds. It
is better that his armor should be somewhat
bruised by rude encounters even, than hang for
ever rusting on the wall. Nor will his themes be
few or trivial, because apparently shut in between
the walls of houses, and having merely the dec-
orations of street scenery. A ruined character
is as picturesque as a ruined castle. There are
dark abysses and yawning gulfs in the human
heart, which can be rendered passable only by
bridging them over with iron nerves and sinews,

76 HYPERION,

as Challey bridged the Sarine m Switzerland,
and Telford the sea between Anglesea and Eng-
land, with chain bridges. These are the great
themes of human thought ; not green grass, and
flowers, and moonlight. Besides, the mere ex-
ternal forms of Nature we make our own, and
carry with us everywhere, by the power of mem-
ory."

" I fear, however," interrupted Flemming,
" that in towns the soul of man grows proud. He
needs at times to be sent forth, Uke the Assyrian
monarch, into green fields, ' a wondrous wretch
and weedless,' to eat green herbs, and be wak-
ened and chastised by the rain shower and win-
ter's bitter weather. Moreover, in cities there
is danger of the soul's becoming wed to pleas-
ure, and forgetful of its high vocation. There
have been souls dedicated to heaven from child-
hood, and guarded by good angels as sweet se-
clusions for holy thoughts, and prayers, and all
good purposes ; wherein pious wishes dwelt Uke
nuns, and every image was a saint ; and yet in
life's vicissitudes, by the treachery of occasion,
by the thronging passions of great cities, have
become soiled and sinful. They resemble those
convents on the river Rhine, which have been

A ROMANCE. 77

changed to taverns ; from whose chambers the
pious inmates have long departed, and in whose
cloisters the footsteps of travellers have effaced
the images of buried saints, and whose walls are
written over with ribaldry and the names of stran-
gers, and resound no more with holy hymns, but
with revelry and loud voices."

" Both town and country have their dangers,"
said the Baron ; " and therefore, wherever the
scholar lives, he must never forget his high voca-
tion. Other artists give themselves up wholly
to the study of their art. It becomes with them
almost religion. For the most part, and in their
youth, at least, they dwell in lands where the
whole atmosphere of the soul is beauty ; laden
with it, as the air may be with vapor, till their
very nature is saturated with the genius of their
art. Such, for example, is the artist's life in
Italy."

" I agree with you," exclaimed Flemming ,
" and such should be the poet's everywhere ;
for he has his Rome, his Florence, his whole
glowing Italy, within the four walls of his library.
He has in his books the ruins of an antique
world, — and the glories of a modern one, —
^'S Apollo and Transfiguration. He must nei-

78 HTPERION,

ther forget nor undervalue his vocation ; but thank
God that he is a poet ; and everywhere be true
to himself, and to ' the vision and the faculty
divine ' he recognizes within him."

" But, at any rate, a town life is most event
ful," continued the Baron. " The men who
make, or take, the lives of poets, and scholars,
always complain that these lives are barren of
incidents. Hardly a literary biography begins
without some such apology, unwisely made. I
confess, however, that it is not made without
some show of truth ; if, by incidents, we mean
only those startling events which suddenly turn
aside the stream of time, and change the world's
history in an hour. There is certainly a uniform
ity, pleasing or unpleasing, in literary life, which
for the most part makes to-day seem twin-born
with yesterday. But if, by incidents, you mean
events in the history of the human mind, (and
why not .'') noiseless events, that do not scar
the forehead of the world as battles do, yet change
it not the less, then surely the lives of literary
men are most eventful. The complaint and the
apology are both foolish. I do not see why a
successful book is not as great an event as a
successful campaign ; only different in kind, and
not easily compared."

A ROMANCE. 79

" Indeed," interrupted Flemming, " in no
sense is the complaint strictly true, though at
times apparently so. Events enough there are,
were they all set down. A life, that is worth
writing at all, is worth writing minutely. Be
sides, all literary men have not lived in silence
and soHtude ; — not all in stillness, not all in
shadow. For many have lived in troubled times,
in the rude and adverse fortunes of the state and
age, and could say, with Wallenstein,

' Our life was but a battle and a march ;
And, like the wind's blast, never-resting, homeless,
We stormed across the war-convulsed earth.'

Many such examples has history recorded ; Dante,
Cervantes, Byron, and others ; men of iron ; men
who have dared to breast the strong breath of
public opinion, and, Uke spectre-ships, come
sailing right agamst the wind. Others have been
puffed out by the first adverse wind that blew ;
disgraced and sorrowful, because they could not
please others. Had they been men, they would
have made these disappointments their best
friends, and learned from them the needful lesson
of self-reliance."

" To confess the truth," added the Baron,

80 HYPERION,

" the lives of literary men, with their hopes and
disappointments, and quarrels and calamities,
present a melancholy picture of man's strength
and weakness. On that very account the scholar
can make them profitable for encouragement, con-
solation, warning."

" And after all," continued Flemming, " per
haps the greatest lesson, which the lives of lit
erary men teach us, is told in a single word :
Wait ! — Every man must patiently bide his
time. He must wait. More particularly in
lands, like my native land, where the pulse of
life beats with such feverish and impatient throbs,
is the lesson needful. Our national character
wants the dignity of repose. We seem to live
LQ the midst of a battle, — there is such a din,
such a hurrying to and fro. In the streets of a
crowded city it is difficult to walk slowly. You
feel the rushing of the crowd, and rush with it
onward. In the press of our life it is difficult to
be calm. In this stress of wind and tide, all
professions seem to drag their anchors, and are
swept out into the main. The voices of the
Present say, ' Come ! ' But the voices of the
Past say, ' Wait ! ' With calm and solemn
footsteps the rising tide bears against the rushing

A KOMANCE. 81

torrent up stream, and pushes back the hurrying
waters. With no less calm and solemn footsteps,
nor less certainly, does a great mmd bear up
against public opinion, and push back its hurry-
ing stream. Therefore should every man wait,

— should bide his time. Not in listless idleness,

— not in useless pastime, — not in querulous
dejection ; but b constant, steady, cheerful en-
deavours, always willing and fulfilling, and accom-
plishing his task, that, when the occasion comes,
he may be equal to the occasion. And if it
never comes, what matters it ? What matters
it to the world, whether I, or you, or another
man did such a deed, or wrote such a book,
sobeit the deed and book were well done ? It
is the part of an indiscreet and troublesome am-
bition to care too much about fame, — about
what the world says of us ; — to be always look-
ing into the faces of others for approval ; to
be always anxious for the effect of what we do
and say ; to be always shouting to hear the echo
of our ovm voices. If you look about you, you
will see men who are wearing life away in fever-
ish anxiety of fame, and the last we shall ever
hear of them will be the funeral bell that tolls
them to their early graves ! Unhappy men, and

Q

82 HYPERION,

unsuccessful ! because their purpose is, not to
accomplish well their task, but to clutch the
' trick and fantasy of fame ' ; and they go to their
graves with purposes unaccomplished and wishes
unfulfilled. Better for them, and for the world
in their example, had they known how to wait '
Believe me, the talent of success is nothing more
than doing what you can do well ; and doing well
whatever you do, — without a thought of fame.
If it come at all, it will come because it is deserv-
ed, not because it is sought after. And, more-
over, there will be no misgivings, no disap-
pointment, no hasty, feverish, exhausting ex-
citement."

Thus endeth the First Book of Hyperion. I
make no record of the winter. Paul Flemming
buried himself in books ; in old, dusty books.
He worked his way diligently through the ancient
poetic lore of Germany, from Frankish Legends
of Saint George, and Saxon Rhyme-Chronicles,
and Nibelungen-Lieds, and Helden-Buchs, and
Songs of the Minnesingers and Mastersingers,
and Ships of Fools, and Reynard the Foxes, and

A ROMANCE. 83

Death-Dances, and Lamentations of Damned
Souls, into the bright, sunny land of harvests,
where, amid the golden grain and the blue corn-
flowers, walk the modern bards, and sing.

BOOK THE SECOND.

■ Something the heart must have to cherish,
Must love, and joy, and sorrow learn ;
Something with passion clasp, or perish.
And in itself to ashes burn."

BOOK THE SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

SPRING.

It was a sweet carol, which the Rhodian chil-
dren sang of old in Spring, bearing in their hands,
from door to door, a swallow, as herald of the
season : —

" The Swallow is come !
The Swallow is come 1
O, fair are the seasons, and light
Are the days that she brings,
With her dusky wings,
And her bosom snowy white ! "

A pretty carol, too, is that, which the Hunga-
rian boys, on the islands of the Danube, sing to
the returning stork in Spring : —

" Stork ! Stork ! poor Stork !
Why is thy foot so bloody ?
A Turkish boy hath torn it ;
Hungarian boy will heal it,
With fiddle, fife, and drum."

88 HYPERION,

But what child has a heart to sing in this ca
pricious clime of ours, where Spring comes sail-
ing in from the sea, with wet and heavy cloud-
sails, and the misty pennon of the East-wind
nailed to the mast ? Yet even here, and in the
stormy month of March even, there are bright,
warm mornings, when we open our windows to
inhale the balmy air. The pigeons fly to and
fro, and we hear the whirring sound of wings.
Old flies crawl out of the cracks, to sun them-
selves ; and think it is Summer. They die in
their conceit ; and so do our hearts within us,
when the cold sea-breath comes from the eastern
sea, and again

" The driving hail
Upon the window beats with icy flail."

The red-flowering maple is first in blossom,
its beautiful purple flowers unfolding a fortnight
before the leaves. The moose-wood follows,
with rose-colored buds and leaves ; and the
dog-wood, robed in the white of its own pure
blossoms. Then comes the sudden rain-storm ;
and the birds fly to and fro, and shriek. Wliere
do they hide themselves in such storms .' at what
firesides dry their feathery cloaks ? At the fire-
side of the great, hospitable sun ; to-morrow, not

A ROMANCE. 89

before ; — they must sit in wet garments until
then.

In all climates Spring is beautiful. In the
South it is intoxicating, and sets a poet beside
himself. The birds begin to sing ; — they utter
a few rapturous notes, and then wait for an an-
swer in the silent woods. Those green-coated
musicians, the frogs, make holiday in the neigh-
bouring marshes. They, too, belong to the or-
chestra of Nature ; whose vast theatre is again
opened, though the doors have been so long
Dolted with icicles, and the scenery hung with
snow and frost like cobwebs. This is the pre-
lude which announces the opening of the scene.
Already the grass shoots forth. The waters
leap with thrilling pulse through the veins of
the earth ; the sap through the veins of the
plants and trees ; and the blood through the
veins of man. What a thrill of delight in Spring-
time ! What a joy in being and moving ! Men
are at work in gardens ; and in the air there is
an odor of the fresh earth. The leaf-buds begin
to swell and blush. The white blossoms of the
cherry hang upon the boughs like snow-flakes ;
and ere long our next-door neighbours will be com-
pletely hidden from us by the dense green foli-

90 HYPERION,

age. The May-flowers open the'r soft blue
eyes. Children are let loose in the fields and
gardens. They hold buttercups under sach
others' chins, to see if they love butter. And
the little girls adorn themselves with chains and
curls of dandelions ; pull out the yellow leaves,
to see if the schoolboy loves them, and blow the
down from the leafless stalk, to find out if their
mothers want them at home.

And at night so cloudless and so still ! Not a
voice of living thing, — not a whisper of leaf or
waving bough, — not a breath of wind, — not a
sound upon the earth nor in the air ! And over-
head bends the blue sky, dewy and soft, and ra-
diant with innumerable stars, like the inverted
beU of some blue flower, sprinkled with golden
dust, and breathing fragrance. Or if the heav-
ens are overcast, it is no wild storm of wind and
rain ; but clouds that melt and fall in showers.
One does not wish to sleep ; but lies awake to
hear the pleasant sound of the dropping rain.

It was thus the Spring began in Heidelberg.

A ROMANCE. 91

CHAPTER II.

A COLLOQUr.

" And what think you of Tiedge's Urania ? '
said the Baron, smiling, as Paul Flemming closed
the book, and laid it upon the table.

" I think," said Flemming, " that it is very
much like Jean Paul's grandfather, — in the high-
est degree poor and pious."

" Bravo ! " exclaimed the Baron. " That is
the best criticism I have heard upon the book.
For my part, I dislike it as much as Goethe did.
It was once very popular, and lay about in every
parlour and bed-room. This annoyed the old
gentlernan exceedingly ; and I do not wonder
at it. He complains, that at one time nothing
was sung or said but this Urania. He believed
in Immortality ; but wished to cherish his belief
in quietness. He once told a friend of his, that
he had, however, learned one thing from all this

92 HYPERION,

talk about Tiedge and his Urania ; which was,
that the saints, as well as the nobility, constitute
an aristocracy. He said he found stupid women,
who were proud because they believed in Immor-
tality with Tiedge, and had to submit himself to
not a few mysterious catechizings and tea-table
lectures on this point ; and that he cut them short
by saying, that he had no objection whatever to
enter into another state of existence hereafter,
but prayed only that he might be spared the honor
of meeting there any of those who had believed
in it here ; for, if he did, they would flock
around him on all sides, exclaiming, ' Were we
not in the right ? Did we not tell you so ? Has
it not all turned out just as we said ? ' "

" How shocked the good old ladies must have
been ! " said Flemming.

" No doubt, their nerves suffered a little ; but
the young women loved him all the better for be-
ing witty and wicked ; and thought, if they could
only marry him, how they would reform him."

" Bettina Brentano, for instance."

" O, no ! That happened long afterwards.
Goethe was then an old man of sixty. She had
never seen him, and knew him only by his writ
ings ; a romantic girl of seventeen."

A ROMANCE. 93

" And yet much in love with the sexagenari-
an. And surely, a more wild, fantastic passion
never sprang up in woman's breast. She was a
flower that worshipped the sun."

" She afterwards married Achim von Arnim,
and is now a widow. And not the least singular
part of the affair is, that, having grown older,
and I hope colder, she should herself publish the
letters which passed between her and Goethe."

" Particularly the letter in which she describes
her first visit to Weimar, and her interview with
the hitherto invisible divinity of her dreams. The
old gentleman took her upon his knees, and she
fell asleep with her head upon his shoulder.
Oberon ipust have touched her eyes with the
juice of Love-in-idleness. However, this book
of Goethe's Correspondence with a Child is a
very singular and valuable revelation of the feel
ings which he excited in female hearts. Yoi.
say she afterwards married Achim von Arnim ? "

" Yes ; and he and her brother, Clemens
Brentano, published that wondrous book, the
Boy's Wonder-Horn."

" The Boy's Wonder-Horn ! " said Flem-
ming, after a short pause, for the name seemed
to have thrown him into a reverie ; — "I know

94 HYPERION,

the book almost by heart. Of all your German
books, it is the one which produces upon my
imagination the most wild and magic influence.
I have a passion for ballads ! "

" And who has not ? " said the Baron, with a
smile. " They are the gypsy-children of song,
born under green hedgerows, in the leafy lanes
and by-palhs of literature, — in the genial Sum-
mer-time."

" Why do you say Summer-time, and not Sum-
mer ? " inquired Flemming. " The expression
reminds me of your old Minnesingers ; — of
Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and Walther von der
Vogelweide, and Count Kraft von Toggenburg,
and your own ancestor, I dare say, Burkhart von
Hohenfels. They were always singing of the
gentle Summer-time. They seem to have lived
poetry, as well as sung it ; like the birds who
make their marriage beds in the voluptuous trees."

" Is that from Shakspeare .' "

" No ; from Lope de Vega."

" You are deeply read in the lore of antiquity,
and the Aubades and Watch-Songs of the old
Minnesingers. What do you think of the shoe-
maker poets that came after them, — with their
guilds and singing-schools .' It makes me laugh

A ROMANCE. 95

to think how the great streams of your German.
Helicon, shrunk to small rivulets, go bubbling and
gurgling over the pebbly names of Zwinger,
Wurgendrussel, Buchenlin, Hellfire, Old StoU,
Young StoU, Strong Bopp, Dang Brotscheim,
Batt Spiegel, Peter Pfort, and Martin Gumpel.
And then the Corporation of the Twelve Wise
Masters, with theur stumpfe-reime and klingende-
reime, and their Hans Tindeisen's rosemary-
weise, and Joseph Schmierer's flowery-para-
dise-weise, and Frauenlob's yellow-weise, and
blue-weise, and frog-weise, and looking-glass-
weise ! "

" O, I entreat you," exclaimed Flemming,
laughing, " do not call those men poets ! You
transport me to quaint old Nuremberg, and I see
Hans Sachs making shoes, and Hans Folz shav-
ing the burgomaster."

" By the way," interrupted the Baron, " did
you ever read Hoffmann's beautiful story of Mas-
ter Martin, the Cooper of Nuremberg ? I will
read it to you this very night. It is the most
delightful picture of that age, which you can con-
ceive. But look ! the sun has already set behind
the Alsatian hills. Let us go up to the castle
and look for the ghost in Prince Ruprecht's tow-
er. O, what a glorious sunset ! "

96 HYPEKIOW,

Flemming looked at, the evenmg sky, and a
shade of sadness stole over his countenance.
He told not to his friend the sorrow with which
his heart was heavy, but kept it for himself alone.
He knew that the time, which comes to all men,
— the time to suffer and be silent, — had come
to him likewise ; and he spake no word. O, well
has it been said, that there is no grief like the
grief which does not speak !

A ROMANCE. 97

CHAPTER III.

OWL-TOWERS.

" There sits the old Frau Himmelauen,
perched up in her owl-tower," said the Baron
to Flemming, as they passed along the Haupt-
strasse. " She looks down through her round-
eyed spectacles from her nest there, and watches
every one that goes hy. T wonder what mis-
chief she is hatchmg now. Do you know she
has nearly ruined your character m town .' She
says you have a rakish look, because you carry
a cane, and your hair curls. Your gloves, also,
are a shade too light for a strictly virtuous man. "

"It is very kind in her to take such good
jare of my character, particularly as I am a
stranger in town. She is doubtless learned in
the Clothes-Philosophy."

" And ignorant of every thing else. She
asked a friend of mine, the other day, whether
Christ was a Cathohc or a Protestant."
7

98 HYPERION,

" That is really too absurd ! "

" Not too absurd to be true. And, ignorant
as she is, she contrives to do a good deal of
mischief in the course of the year. Why, the
women already call you Wilhelm Meister."

" They are at liberty to call me what they
please. But you, who know me better, know
that I am something more than they would imply
by the name."

" She says, moreover, that the American wo-
men sit with their feet out of the window, and
have no pocket-handkerchiefs."

" Excellent ! "

They crossed the market-place, and went up
beneath the grand terrace into the court-yard of
the castle.

"Let us go and sit under the great Imden-
trees, that grow on the summit of the Rent Tow-
er," said Flemming. "From that point, as from
a watch-tower, we can look down into the garden,
and see the crowd below us."

" And amuse ourselves, as old Frau Himmel-
auen does, at her window in the Hauptstrasse,"
added the Baron.

The keeper's daughter unlocked for them the
door of the tower, and, climbing the steep stair-

A ROMANCE. 99

case, they seated themselves on a wooden bench
under the linden-trees.

" How beautifully these trees overgrqw the old
tower ! And see what a solid mass of masonry
lies in the great fosse down there, toppled from
its base by the explosion of a mine ! It is like a
rusty helmet cleft in twain, but still crested with
towering plumes ! "

" And what a motley crowd in the garden !
Philisters and Sons of the Muses ! And there
goes the venerable Thibaut, taking his evening
stroll. Do you see him there, with his silver
hair flowing over his shoulders, and that friendly
face, which has for so many years pored over the
Pandects .' I assure you, he inspires me with
awe. And yet he is a merry old man, and loves
his joke, particularly at the expense of Moses and
other ancient lawgivers."

Here their attention was diverted by a wild-
looking person, who passed with long strides un-
der the archway in the fosse, right beneath them,
and disappeared among the bushes. He was ill-
dressed, his hair flying in the wind, his move-
ments hurried and nervous, and the expression
of his broad countenance wild, strange, and ear-
nest.

100 HYPERION,

"Who can that be ? " asked Flemming. " He
strides away indignantly, iike one of Ossian's
ghosts ! ",

' ' A great philosopher, whose name I have for
gotten. Truly, a strange owl ! "

" He looks like a lion with a hat on."

" He is a mystic, who reads Schubert's His-
tory of the Soul, and lives, for the most part, in
the clouds of the Middle Ages. To him the
spirit-world is still open. He believes in the
transmigration of souls ; and I dare say is now
following the spirit of some departed friend, who
has taken the form of yonder pigeon."

" What a strange hallucination ! He lives, I
suppose, in the land of cloud-shadows. And, as
St. Thomas Aquinas was said to be lifted up
from the ground by the fervor of his prayers, so,
no doubt, is he by the fervor of his visions."

" He certainly appears to neglect all sublunary
things ; and, to judge from certain appearances,
since you seem fond of holy similitudes, one
would say, that, like St. Serapion the Sindonite,
he had but one shirt. Yet what cares he .' he
lives in that poetic dream-land of his thoughts,
and clothes himself in poetry."

" He is a poet, then, as well as a philoso-
pher ? "

A ROMANCE. 101,

" Yes ; but a poet who never writes. There
IS nothing in nature to which his imagination does
not give a poetic hue. But the power to malce
others see these objects in the same poetic light
is wanting. Still he is a man of fine powers and
feelmgs ; for next to being a great poet is the
power of understanding one, — of finding one's
self in him, as we Germans say."

Three figures, dressed in black, now came
fi:om one of the green alleys, and stopped on the
brink of a fountain that was playing among the
gay flowers in the garden. The eldest of the
three was a woman in that season of life when
the early autumn gives to the summer leaves a
warmer glow, yet fades them not. Though the
mother of many children, she was still beautiful ;
— resembling those trees which blossom in Oc-
tober, when the leaves are changing, and whose
fruit and blossom are on the branch at once. At
her side was a girl of some sixteen years, who
seemed to lean upon her arm for support. Her
figure was slight ; her countenance beautiful,
though deadly white ; and her meek eyes like
the flower of the nightshade, pale and blue, but
sending forth golden rays. They were attended
by a tall youth of foreign aspect, who seemed a

102 HrPERION,

young Antinoiis, with a mustache and a nose
a la Kosciusko. In other respects a perfect hero
of romance.

"Unless mme eyes deceive me," said the
Baron, " there is the Frau von Ilmenau, with
her pale daughter Emma, and that eternal Polish
count. He is always hovering about them, play-
ing the unhappy exile, merely to excite that poor
girl's sympathies ; and as wretched as genius and
wantonness can make him."

" Why, he is already married, you know," re-
plied Flemming. " And his wife is young and
beautiful."

" That does not prevent him from being in
love with some one else. That question was
decided in the Courts of Love in the Middle
Ages. Accordingly he has sent his fair wife to
Warsaw. But how pale the poor child looks ! "

" She has just recovered from severe illness.
In the winter, you know, it was thought she
would not live from hour to hour."

" And she has hardly recovered from that dis-
ease, before she seems threatened with a worse
one ; namely, a hopeless passion. However,
people do not die of love now-a-days."

" Seldom, perhaps," said Flemming. " And

A ROMANCE. 103

yet it is folly to pretend that one ever wholly
recovers from a disappointed passion. Such
wounds always leave a scar. There are faces I
can never look upon without emotion. There are
names I can never hear spoken without almost
starting."

" But whom have we here .' "

" That is the French poet Quinet, with his
fair German wife ; one of the most interesting
women I ever knew. He is the author of a very
wild Mystery, or dramatic prose-poem, in which
the Ocean, Mont-Blanc, and the Cathedral of
Strashurg have parts to play ; and the saints on
the stained windows of the minster speak, and
the statues and dead kings enact the Dance of
Death. It is entitled Ahasuerus, or the Wander-
ing Jew."

" Or, as the Danes would translate it, the
Shoemaker of Jerusalem. That would be a
still more fantastic title for his fantastic book.
You know I am no great admirer of the modern
French school of writers. The tales of Paul de
Kock seem to me like obscene stories told at
dinner-tables. It has been truly said of him,
that he is not only populaire, but populacier ;
and rather harshly of George Sand and Victor

104 HYPERION,

Hugo, that their works stand like fortifications,
well built and well supplied with warlike muni-
tions ; but ineffectual against the Grand Army of
God, which marches onward, as if nothing had
happened. In surveying a national literature,
the point you must start from is national char-
acter. That lets you into many a secret. The
most prominent trait in the French character is
love of amusement and excitement; and "

" I should say, rather, the fear of ennui,"
interrupted Flemming. " Some one has said,
with a great deal of truth, that ' the gentry of
France rush into Paris to escape from ennui,
as, in the noble days of chivalry, the defenceless
inhabitants of the champaign fled into the castles,
at the approach of some plundering knight or
lawless baron ; forsaking the inspired twilight
of their native groves, for the luxurious shades
of the royal gardens.' What do you think of
that .? "

The Baron replied with a smile : —

" There is only one Paris ; and out of Paris
there is no salvation for decent people."

Thus conversing of many things, sat the two
friends under the linden-trees on- the Rent Tower,
till gradually the crowd disappeared from the gar-

A ROMANCE. 105

den, and the objects around them grew indis-
tinct, in the fading twilight. Between them
and the amber-colored western sky, the dense
foliage of the trees looked heavy and hard, as
if cast in bronze ; and already the evening stars
hung like silver lamps in the towering branches
of that Tree of Life, brought more than two
centuries ago from its primeval paradise in
America, to beautify the gardens of the Pala-
tinate.

" I take a mournful pleasure in gazing at that
tree," said Flemming, as they rose to depart.
" It stands there so straight and tall, with iron
bands around its noble trunk and limbs, in silent
majesty, or whispering only in its native tongue,
and freighting the homeward wind with sighs !
It reminds me of some captive monarch of a
savage tribe, brought over the vast ocean for
a show, and chained in the public market-place
of the city, disdainfully silent, or breathing only
in melancholy accents a prayer for his native
forest, a longing to be free."

" Magnificent ! " cried the Baron. "I al-
ways experience something of the same feeling,
when I walk through a conservatory. The lux-
uriant plants of the tropics — those illustrious

106 HYPERION,

exotics, with their gorgeous flamingo-colored
blossoms, and great flappmg leaves, like ele-
phants' ears — have a smgular working upon
my imagination, and remind me of a menagerie
and wild beasts kept in cages. But your illus-
tration is finer; — indeed, a grand figure. Put
it down for an epic poem."

A ROMANCE. 107

CHAPTER IV.

A BEER-SCANDAL.

On their way homeward, Flemming and the
Baron passed through a narrow lane, in which
was a well-known Studenten-Kneipe. At the
door stood a young man, whom the Baron at
once recognized as his friend Von Kleist. He
was a student ; and universally acknowledged,
among his young acquaintance, as a " devilish
handsome fellow " ; notwithstanding a tremen-
dous scar on his cheek, and a cream-colored
mustache, as soft as the silk of Indian corn. In
short, he was a renowner, and a duellist.

" What are you doing here. Von Kleist ? "

" Ah, my dear Baron ! Is it you } Come
in ; come in. You shall see some sport. A
Fox-Commerce is on foot, and a regular Beer-
Scandal."

" Shall we go in, Flemming ? "

108 HYPERION,

" Certainly. I should like to see how these
things are managed in Heidelberg. You are a
baron, and I am a stranger. It is of no conse-
quence what you and I do, as the king's fool An-
geli said to the poet Bautru, urging him to put on
his hat at the royal dinner-table."

William Lilly, the Astrologer, says, in his
Autobiography, that, when he was committed
to the guard-room in Whitehall, he thought
himself in hell ; for "some were sleeping, others
swearing, others smoking tobacco ; and in the
chimney of the room there were two bushels
of broken tobacco-pipes, and almost half a load
of ashes." What he would have thought, if he
had peeped into this Heidelberg Studenten-
Kneipe, I know not. He certamly would not
have thought himself in heaven ; unless it were
a Scandinavian heaven. The windows were
open ; and yet so dense was the atmosphere with
the smoke of tobacco and the fumes of beer, that
the tallow candles burned but dimly. A crowd
of students were sittmg at three long tables, in
the large hall ; a medley of fellows, known at
German Universities under the cant names of
Old-Ones, Mossy-Heads, Princes of Twilight,
and Pomatum-Stallions. They were smoking,

A ROMANCE. 109

drinking, singing, screaming, and discussing the
great Laws of the Broad-Stone and the Gutter.
They had a great deal to say, likewise, about
Besens, and Zobels, and Poussades ; and, if they
had been charged for the noise they made, as
travellers used to be, in the old Dutch taverns,
they would have had a longer biU to pay for that
than for their beer.

In a large arm-chair, upon the middle table,
sat one of those distinguished individuals known
among German students as a Senior, or Leader
of a Landsmannschaft. He was booted and
spurred, and wore a very small crimson cap,
and a very tight blue jacket, and very long hair,
and a very dirty shirt. He was President of
the night ; and, as Flemming entered the hall
with the Baron and his friend, striking upon the
table with a mighty broadsword, he cried in a
loud voice : —

" Silentium!"

At the same moment, a door at the end of the
hall was thrown open, and a procession of new-
comers, or Nasty-Foxes, as they are called in the
college dialect, entered two by two, looking
wild, and green, and foolish. As they came
forward, they were obliged to pass under a pair

110 HYPERION,

of naked swords, held crosswise by two Old-
Ones, who, with pieces of burnt cork, made an
enormous pair of mustaches on the smooth,
rosy cheeks of each, as he passed beneath this
arch of triumph. While the procession was
entering the hall, the President lifted up his
voice again, and began to sing the well-known
Fox-song, in the chorus of which 'aU present
jomed lustily.

What comes there from the hill ?

What comes there from the hill ?

What comes there from the leathery hill ?

Sa! Sa!

Leathery hill !
What comes there from the hill ?

It is a postilion !
It is a postilion !
It is a leathery postilion !

Sa! Sa!

Postilion !
It is a postilion I

What brings the postilion ?
What brings the postilion ?
What brings the leathery postilion ?

Sa ! Sa !

Postilion !
What brings the postilion t

A ROMANCE. Ill

He bringeth us a Fox !
He bringeth U9 a Fox !
He bringeth us a leathery Fox '

Sa! Sa!

Leathery Fox !
He bringeth U3 a Fox !

Tour servant, Masters mine !
Your servant, Masters mine !
Your servant, much-honored Masters mine .

Sa! Sa!

Much-honored Masters mine '.
Your servant, Masters mine !

How does the Herr Papa?
How does the Herr Papa ?
How does the leathery Herr Papa f

Sa! Sa!

Herr Papa !
How does the Herr Papa?

He reads in Cicero !
He reads in Cicero !
He reads in leathery Cicero 1

Sa ! Sa !

Cicero !
He reads in Cicero !

How does the Fran Mamma?
How does the Frau Mamma ?
How does the leathery Frau Mamma '

Sa! Sa!

Frau Mamma !
How does the Frau Mamma ?

112 HYPERION,

She makes the Papa tea !
She makes the Papa tea !
She makes the Papa leathery tea !

Sa! Sa!

Leathery tea !
She makes the Papa tea !

How does the Mamsell Soeur .•'
How does the Mamsell Soeur?
How does the leathery Mamsell Soeur ?

Sa! Sa!

Mamsell Soeur !
How does the Mamsell ScEur ?

She knits the Papa stockings !
She knits the Papa stockings !
She knits the Papa leathery stockings !

Sa! Sa!

Leathery stockings !
She knits the Papa stockings !

How does the Herr Rector ?
How does the Herr Rector ?
How does the leathery Herr Rector ?

Sa! Sa!

Herr Rector !
How does the Herr Rector ?

He calls the scholar, Boy !
Ho calls the scholar, Boy !
He ceJIs the scholar, leathery Boy !

Sa! Sa!

Leathery Boy !
He calls the scholar, Boy !

A ROMANCE. Ij3

And smokes the Fox tobacco ?
And smokes the Fox tobacco f
And smokes the leathery Fox touacco''

Sa ! Sa !

Fox tobacco !
And smokes the Fox tobacco ?

A little, Masters mine !
A little, Masters mine !
A little, much-honored Masters mine .

Sa! Sa<

Much-honored Masters mine !
A little, Masters mine !

Then let him fill a pipe !
Then let him fill a pipe !
Then let him fill a leathery pipe !

Sa ! Sa !

Leathery pipe !
Then let him fill a pipe <

O Lord ! It makes me sick !
O Lord ! It makes me sick !
O Lord ! It makes me leathery skk '

Sa ! Sa !

Leathery sick !
O Lord ! It makes me sick !

Then let him throw it off.
Then let him throw it off!
Then let him throw it leathery oft

Sa! Sa!

Leathery off !
Then let him throw it off'

8

114 HYPERION,

Now I again am well !
Now he again is well !
Now 1 again am leathery weii .'

Sa ! Sa !

Leathery well !
Now I again am well '

So grows the Fox a Bursch !
So grows the Fox a Bursch !
So grows the leathery Fox a Bursch .

Sa! Sa!

Fox a Bursch !
So grows the Fox a Bursch !

At length the song was finished. Meanwhile
large tufts and strips of paper had been twisted
into the hair of the Branders, as those are called
who have been already one term at the Univer-
sity, and then at a given signal were set on
fire, and the Branders rode round the table on
chairs amid roars of laughter. When this cere-
mony w^as completed, the President rose and
in a solemn voice pronounced a long discourse,
in which old college jokes were mingled with
much parental advice to young men on entering
life, and the whole was profusely garnished with
select passagp<i from the Old Testament. Then
they all seated themselves at the table and the
heavy beer-drinking set in, as among the Gods
and Heroes of the old Northern mythology.

A ROMANCL. 115

" Brander ! Brander ! " screamed a youth
whose face was hot and flushed with supper and
witli beer ; " Brander, I say ! Thou art a Doc-
tor ! No, — a Pope ; — thou art a Pope, by — ! "

These words were addressed to a pale, quiet-
looking person, who sat opposite, and was busy
in making a wretched shaved poodle sit on his
Jiind legs in a chair, by his master's side, and
hold a short clay pipe in his mouth, — a per-
lormance to which the poodle seemed no wise
inclined.

" Thou art challenged ! " replied the pale stu-
dent, turning from his dog, who dropped the pipe
from his mouth and leaped under the table.

Seconds were chosen on the spot ; and the
arms ordered ; namely, six mighty goblets, or
Bassglaser, filled to the brim with foaming beer.
Three were placed before each duellist.

" Take your weapons ! " cried one of the sec-
onds, and each of the combatants seized a goblet
in his hand.

" Strike ! "

And the glasses rang, with a salutation like
the crossing of swords.

" Set to ! "

Each set the goblet to his lips.

lib HTPERION,

" Out ! "

And each poured the contents down his throat,
as if he were pouring them through a tunnel into
a beer-barrel. The other two glasses followed
in quick succession, hardly a long breath drawn
between. The pale student was victorious.
He was first to drain the third goblet. He held
it for a moment inverted, to let the last drops
fall out, and then placing it quietly on the table,
looked his antagonist m the face, and said : —

" Hit ! "

Then, with the greatest coolness, looldng un-
der the table, he whistled for his dog. His antag-
onist stopped midway in his third glass. Every
vein in his forehead seemed bursting ; his eyes
were wild and bloodshot, his hand gradually loos
ened its hold upon the table, and he sank and
rolled together like a sheet of lead. He was
drunk.

At this moment a majestic figure came stalk-
ing down the table, ghost-like, through the dim,
smoky atmosphere. His coat was off, his neck
bare, his hair wild, his eyes wide open, and look-
ing straight before him, as if he saw some beckon-
ing hand in the air, that others could not see.
His left hand was upon his hip, and in his right

A ROMANCE. 117

he held a drawn sword extended, and pointing
downward. Regardless of every one, erect,
and with a martial stride, he marched directly
along the centre of the table, crushing glsisses
and overthrowing bottles at every step. The
students shrunk back at his approach ; till at
length one more intoxicated, or more courageous,
than the rest, dashed a glass full of beer into his
face. A general tumult ensued, and the student
with the sword leaped to the floor. It was
Von Kleist. He was renowning it. In the midst
of the uproar could be distinguished the offensive
words : —

" Arrogant ! Absurd ! Impertinent ! Dum-
mer Junge ! "

Von Kleist went home that night with no less
than six duels on his hands. He fought them
all out in as many days ; and came off with only
a gash through his upper lip and another through
his right eyelid from a dexterous Suabian Schla-
ger.

118 HYPERION,

CHAPTER V.

THE WHITE lady's SLIPPER AND THE PAS-
SION-FLOWER.

That night Emma of Ilmenau went to her
chamber with a heavy heart, and her dusky eyes
were troubled with tears. She was one of those
gentle beings who seem created only to love and
to be loved. A shade of melancholy softened
her character. She shunned the glare of day-
light and of society, and wished to be alone.
Like the evening primrose, her heart opened
only after sunset ; but bloomed through the dark
night with sweet fragrance. Her mother, on the
contrary, flaunted in the gairish light of society.
There was no sympathy between them. Their
souls never approached, never understood each
other, and words were often spoken which wound-
ed deeply. And therefore Emma of Ilmenau
went to her chamber that night with tears in her
eyes.

A ROMANCE. 119

She was followed by her French chamber-
maid, Madeleine, a native of Strasburg, who
had grown old in the family. In her youth, she
had been poor, — and virtuous, because she had
never been tempted ; and now that she had
grown old, and seen no immediate reward for
her virtue, as is usual with weak minds, she de-
spaired of Providence, and regretted she had
■jever been tempted. Whilst this unfortunate
personage was hghting the wax tapers on the
toilet, and drawing the bed-curtains, and tattling
about the room, Emma threw herself into an
arm-chair, and, crossing her hands in her lap,
and letting her head fall upon her bosom, seemed
lost in a dream.

" Why have these gentle feelings been given
me ? " said she in her heart. " Why have I
been bom with all these warm affections, these
ardent longings after what is good, if they lead
only to sorrow and disappointment .'' I would
love some one, — love him once and for ever; —
devote myself to him alone, — live for him, —
die for him, — exist alone in him ! But, alas !
'n all this wide world there is none to love me,
as I would be loved, — none whom I may love,
as I am capable of loving. How empty, how

120 HYPERION,

desolate, seems the world about me ! Why has
Heaven given me these affections, only to fall
and fade ? "

Alas ! poor child ! thou, too, must learn, like
others, that the sublime mystery of Providence
goes on in silence, and gives no explanation
of itself, — no answer to our impatient ques-
tionings !

" Bless me, child, what ails you ? " exclaimed
Madeleine, perceiving that Emma paid no at-
tention to her idle gossip. "When I was of your
age "

" Do not talk to me now, good Madeleine.
Leave me, I wish to be alone."

" Well, here is something," continued the
maid, taking a billet from her bosom, " which
I hope will enliven you. When I was of your
age "

"Hush ! hush ! " said Emma, taking the billet
from the hard hand of Madeleine. " Once more
I beg you, leave me. I wish to be alone."

Madeleine took the lamp and retired slowly,
(vishing her young mistress many good nights and
rosy dreams. Emma broke the seal of the note.
As she read, her face became deadly pale, and
then, as quick as thought, a crimson blush gleam-

A ROMANCE. 121

ed on her cheek, and her hands trembled. Ten-
derness, pity, love, offended pride, the weak-
ness and dignity of woman, were all mingled
in her look, changing and passing over her fine
countenance like cloud-shadows. She sunk
back in her chair, covering her face with her
hands, as if she would hide it from herself and
Heaven.

" He loves me ! " said she to herself ; " loves
me ; and is married to another, whom he loves
not ! and dares to tell me this ! O, never, —
never, — never ! And yet he is so friendless
and alone in this unsympathizing world, — and an
exile, and homeless ! I can but pity him ; —
yet I hale him, and will see him no more ! "

This short reverie of love and hate was broken
by the sound of a clear, mellow voice, which, in
the universal stillness of the hour, seemed almost
like the voice of a spirit. It was a voice, with-
out the accompaniment of any instrument, sing-
ing those sweet lines of Goethe : —

" Under the tree-tops is quiet now !
In all the woodlands hearest thou

Not a sound !
The little biids are asleep in the trees ;
Wait ! wait ! and soon, like these,

Sleepest thou ! "

122 HYPERION,

Emma knew the voice, and started. She rush-
ed to the window to close it. It was a beautiful
night, and the stars were shining peacefully over
the mountain of All- Saints. The sound of the
Neckar was soft and low ; nightingales were sing-
ing among the brown shadows of the woods ; the
large red moon shone, like a ruby, in the hori-
zon's ample ring ; and golden threads of light
•ieemed braided together with the rippling current
of the river. Tall and spectral stood the white
statues on the bridge. The outlines of the hills,
the castle, the arches of the bridge, and the spires
and roofs of the town were as strongly marked
as if cut out of pasteboard. Amid this fairy
scene, a little boat was floating silently down the
stream. Emma closed the window hastily, and
drew the curtains close.

" I hate him ; and yet T will pray for him,"
said she, as she laid her weary head upon that
pillow, from which, but a few months before,
she thought she should never raise it again. " O,
that I had died then ! I dare not love him, but I
will pray for him ! "

Sweet child ! If the face of the deceiver comes
so often between thee and Heaven, I tremble for
thy fate ! The plant that sprang from Helen's

A ROMANCE. >23

tears destroyed serpents ; — would that from thine
might spring up heart's-ease, — some plant, at
least, to destroy the serpents in thy bosom ! Be-
lieve me, upon the margin of celestial streams
alone those simples grow which cure the heart-
ache !

And this the silent stars beheld, looking down
from heaven, and told it not again. This, like-
wise, the Frau Himmelauen beheld, looking from
her chamber-window, and was not so discreet as
the silent stars.

124 HYPERION,

CHAPTER VI.

GLIMPSES INTO CLOUD-LAND.

" There are many tilings, which, having no
corporeal evidence, can be perceived and com-
prehended only by the discursive energies -of rea-
son. Hence the ambiguous nature of matter can
be comprehended only by adulterated opinion.
Matter is the principle of aU bodies, and is stamp-
ed with the impression of forms. Fire, air, and
water derive their origin and principle from the
scalene triangle. But the earth was created from
right-angled triangles, of which two of the sides
are equal. The sphere and the pyramid contain
in themselves the figure of fire ; but the octae-
dron was destined to be the figure of air, and the
icosaedron of water. The right-angled isosceles
triangle produces from itself a square, and the
square generates from itself the cube, which is the
figure peculiar to earth. But the figure of a beau-

A ROMANCE. 125

tiful and perfect sphere was imparted to the most
beautiful and perfect world, that it might be indi'
gent of nothing, but contain all things, embracing
and comprehending them in itself, and thus might
be excellent and admirable, similar to and in con-
cord with itself, ever moving musically and me-
lodiously. If I use a novel language, excuse me.
As Apuleius says, pardon must be granted to
novelty of words, when it serves to illustrate the
obscurity of things."

These words came from the lips of the lion-
like philosopher who has been noticed before
in these pages. He was sitting with Flemming,
smoking a long pipe. As the Baron said, he
was indeed a strange owl ; for the owl is a grave
bird ; a monk, who chants midnight mass in the
great temple of Nature ; — an anchorite, — a
pillar saint, — the very Simeon Stylites of his
neighbourhood. Such, likewise, was the philc-
sophical Professor. Solitary, but with a mighty
current, flowed the river of his life, like the Nile,
without a tributary stream, and making fertile
only a single strip in the vast desert. His tem-
perament had been in youth a joyous one ; and
now, amid all his sorrows and privations, — for
he had many, — he looked upon the world as a

126 HYPERION,

glad, bright, glorious world. On the many joys of
life he gazed still with the eyes of childhood, from
the far-gone Past upward, trusting, hoping ; —
and upon its sorrows with the eyes of age, from
the distant Future, downward, triumphant, not
despairing. He loved solitude, and silence, and
candle-light, and the deep midnight. " For,"
said he, " if the morning hours are the wings
of the day, I only fold them about me to sleep
more sweetly ; knowing, that, at its other extrem-
ity, the day, like the fowls of the air, has an
epicurean morsel, — a parson's nose ; and on
this oily midnight my spirit revels and is glad."

Such was the Professor, who had been talking
in a half-intelligible strain for two hours or more
The Baron had fallen fast asleep in his chair ;
but Flemming sat listening with excited imagina-
tion, and the Professor continued in the following
•words, which, to the best of his listener's mem-
ory, seemed gleaned here and there from Fich-
te's Destiny of Man, and Schubert's History of
the Soul.

" Life is one and universal ; its forms many
and individual. Throughout this beautiful and
wonderful creation there is never-ceasing motion,
without rest by night or day, ever weaving to and

A ROMANCE. 127

fro. Swifter than a weaver's shuttle it flies from
Birth to Death, from Death to Birth ; from the
beginning seeks the end, and finds it not, for the
seeming end is only a dim beginning of a new
out-going and endeavour after the end. As the
ice upon the mountain, when the warm breath
of the summer sun breathes upon it, melts, and
divides into drops, each of which reflects an
image of the sun ; so life, in the smile of God's
love, divides itself into separate forms, each bear-
mg in it and reflecting an image of God's love.
Of all these forms the highest and most perfect
m its God-likeness is the human soul. The vast
cathedral of Nature is full of holy scriptures, and
shapes of deep, mysterious meaning ; but all is
solitary and silent there ; no bending knee, no up-
lifted eye," no lip adoring, praying. Into this vast
cathedral comes the human soul, seeking its Cre-
ator ; and the universal silence is changed to
sound, and the sound is harmonious, and has a
meaning, and is comprehended and felt. It was
an ancient saying of the Persians, that the waters
rush from the mountains and hurry forth into all
the lands to find the Lord of the Earth ; and the
flame of the fire, when it awakes, gazes no more
upon the ground, but mounts heavenward to seek

128 HrPERION,

the Lord of Heaven ; and here and there the
Earth has built the great watch-towers of the
mountains, and they Uft their heads far up into
the sky, and gaze ever upward and around, to see
if the Judge of the World comes not ! Thus in
Nature herself, without man, there hes a waiting
and hoping, a looking and yearning, after an un-
known somewhat. Yes ; when, above there,
where the mountain lifts its head over all others,
that it may be alone with the clouds and storms
of heaven, the lonely eagle looks forth into the
gray dawn, to see if the day comes not ; when,
by the mountain torrent, the brooding raven lis-
tens to hear if the chamois is returning from his
nightly pasture in the valley ; and when the soon
uprising sun calls out the spicy odors of the
thousand flowers, the Alpine flowers, with heav-
en's deep blue and the blush of sunset on their
leaves; — then there awake in Nature, and the
soul of man can see and comprehend them, an
expectation and a longing for a future revelation
of God's majesty. They awake, also, when, in
the fulness of life, field and forest rest at noon,
and through the stillness are heard only the song
of the grasshopper and the hum of the bee ; and
when at evening the singing lark up from the

A ROMANCE. 129

sweet-smelling vineyards rises, or in the later
hours of night Orion puts on his shining armor,
to walk forth into the fields of heaven. But in the
soul of man alone is this longing changed to cer-
tainty, and fulfilled. For, lo ! the light of the sun
and the stars shines through the air, and is no
where visible and seen ; the planets hasten with
more than the speed of the storm through infinite
_ space, and their footsteps are not heard ; but
where the sunlight strikes the firm surface of the
planets, where the storm-wind smites the wall
of the mountain cliff, there is the one seen and
the other heard. Thus is the glory of God
made visible, and may be seen, where in the
soul of man it meets its likeness changeless and
firm-standing. Thus, then, stands Man ; — a
mountain on the boundary between two worlds ;
— its foot in one, its summit far-rising into the
other. From this summit the manifold landscape
of life is visible, the way of the Past and Per-
ishable, which we have left behind us ; and as
we evermore ascend, bright glimpses of the day-
break of Eternity beyond us ! "

Flemming would fain have interrupted this dis-
course at times, to answer and inquire ; but the
Professor went on, warming and glowing more
9

130 HYPERION,

and more. At length, there was a short pause,
and Flemming said : —

" All these indefinite longings, these yearn
ings after an unknown somewhat, I have felt
and still feel within me ; but not yet their fulfil-
ment."

" That is because you have not faith," an-
swered the Professor. " The Present is an age
of doubt, and disbelief, and darkness ; out of
which shall arise a clear and bright Hereafter
In the second part of Goethe's Faust, there is
a grand and striking scene, where in the classical
Walpurgis Night, on the Pharsalian Plains, the
mocking Mephislopheles sits down between the
solemn antique Sphinxes, and boldly questions
them, and reads their riddles. The red light
of innumerable watch-fires glares round about,
and shines upon the terrible face of the arch-
scoffer ; while on either side, severe, majestic,
solemnly serene, we behold the gigantic forms
of the children of Chimaera, half buried in the
earth, their mild eyes gazing fixedly, as if tliey
heard through the midnight the swift-rushing
wings of the Stymphalides, striving to outstrip
the speed of Alcides' arrows ! Angry Griffins
are near them ; and not far are Sirens, singing

A ROMANCE. 131

their wondrous songs from the rocking branches
of the willow-trees ! Even thus does a scoffing
and unbelieving Present sit down between an
unknown Future and a too believing Past, and
question and challenge the gigantic forms of Faith,
half buried in the sands of Time, and gazing
forward steadfastly into the night, whilst sounds
of anger and voices of delight alternate vex and
soothe the ear of man ! — But the time will
come, when the soul of man shall return again
childlike and trustful to its faith in God, and look
God in the face and die ; for it is an old saying,
full of deep, mysterious meaning, that he must
die, who hath looked upon a God. And this is
the fate of the soul, that it should die continually.
No sooner here on earth does it awake to its
peculiar being, than it struggles to behold and
comprehend the Spirit of Life. In the first dim
twilight of its existence, it beholds this spirit,
is pervaded by its energies, — is quick and crea-
tive like the spirit itself, and yet slumbers away
into death after having seen it. But the image
it has seen remains ; in the eternal procreation,
as a homogeneal existence, is again renewed ; and
the seeming death, from moment to moment,
becomes the source of kind after kind of exist-

132 HrPERION,

ences in ever-ascending series, The soul as-
pires ever onward to love and to behold. It sees
the image more perfect in the brightening twilight
of the dawn, in the ever higher-rising sun. It
sleeps again, dying in the clearer vision ; but the
image seen remains as a permanent kind ; and
the s'lumberer awakes anew and ever higher after
its own image, till at length, in the full blaze of
noonday, a being comes forth, which, like the
eagle, can behold the sun and die not. Then
both live on, even when this bodily element, the
mist and vapor through which the young eagle
gazed, dissolves and falls to earth."

" I am not sure that I understand you," said
riemming ; " but if I do, you mean to say, that,
as the body continually changes and takes unto
itself new properties, and is not the same to-day
as yesterday, so likewise the soul lays aside
its idiosyncrasies, and is changed by acquiring
new powers, and thus may be said to die. And
hence, properly speaking, the soul lives alway
in the Present, and has, and can have, no Fu-
ture ; for the Future becomes the Present,
and the soul that then lives in me is a higher
and more perfect soul ; and so onward for ever-

A ROMANCE. 133

" I mean what I say," continued the Profes-
sor ; " and can find no more appropriate Ian
guage to express my meaning than that which I
have used. But, as I said before, pardon must
be granted to the novelty of words, when it
serves to illustrate the obscurity of things. And
I think you will see clearly from what I have
said, that this earthly life, when seen hereafter
from heaven, will seem like an hour passed long
ago, and dimly remembered ; — that long, labo-
rious, full of joys and sorrows as it is, it will
then have dwindled down to a mere point, hardly
visible to the far-reaching ken of the disembodied
spirit. But the spirit itself soars onward. And
thus death is neither an end nor a beginning. It
is a transition, not from one existence to another,
but from one state of existence to another. No
link is broken in the ch^in of being ; any more
than in passing from infancy to manhood, from
manhood to old age. There are seasons of rev-
erie and deep abstraction, which seem to me anal-
ogous to death. The soul gradually loses its con-
sciousness of what is passing around it ; and takes
no longer cognizance of objects which are near.
It seems for the moment to have dissolved its
connection with the body. It has passed, as it

134 HYPERION,

were, into another state of being. It lives in
another world. It has flown over lands and
seas ; and holds communion with those it loves,
in distant regions of the earth, and the more
distant heaven. It sees familiar faces, and hears
beloved voices, which to the bodily senses are
no longer visible and audible. And this like-
wise is death ; save that, when we die, the soul
returns no more to the dwelling it has left."

" You seem to take it for granted," interrupt
ed riemming, " that, m our reveries, the soul
really goes out of the body into distant places,
instead of summoning up their semblance with-
in itself by the power of memory and imagina-
tion."

" Something I must take for granted," replied
the Professor. " We will not discuss that point
now. I speak not wijhout forethought. Just
observe what a glorious thing human life is, when
seen in this light ; and how glorious man's des-
tiny. I am ; thou art ; he is ! seems but a school-
boy's conjugation. But therein lies a mysterious
meaning. We behold all round about us one
vast union, in which no man can labor for himself,
without laboring at the same tin>e for all others ;
a glimpse of truth, which, by the universal bar-

A ROMAXCK. 135

mony of things, becomes an inward benediction,
and lifts the soul mightily upward. Still more
so, when a man regards himself as a necessary
member of this union. The feeling of our dig-
flity and our power grows strong, when we say
to ourselves : ' My being is not objectless and
in vain ; I am a necessary linjj in the great
chain, which, from the full development of con-
sciousness in the first man, reaches forward into
eternity. All the great, and wise, and good
among mankind, all the benefactors of the human
race, whose names I read in the world's history,
and the still greater number of those whose
good deeds have outlived their names, — all those
have labored for me. I have entered into their
harvest. I walk the green earth which they
inhabited. I tread in their footsteps, from which
blessings grow. I can undertake the sublime
task which they once undertook, the task of
making our common brotherhood wiser and hap-
pier. I can build forward, where they were
forced to leave off ; and bring nearer to perfec-
tion the great edifice which they left uncomplet-
ed. And at length I, too, must leave it, and
go hence. O, this is the sublimest thought of
all ! I can never finish the noble task ; there-

136 HYPERION,

fore, so sure as this task is my destiny, I can
never cease to work, and consequently never
cease to be. What men call death cannot break
off this task, which is never-ending ; consequent-
ly no period is set to my being, and I am eternal,
I lift my head boldly to the threatening moun-
tain-peaks, and to the roaring cataract, and to
the storm-clouds swimming in the fire-sea over-
head, and say, — I am eternal, and defy your
power ! Break, break over me ! and thou Earth,
and thou Heaven, mingle in the wild tumult !
and ye Elements, foam and rage, and destroy this
atom of dust, — this body, which I call mine !
My will alone, with its fixed purpose, shall hover
brave and triumphant over the ruins of the uni-
verse ; for I have comprehended my destiny ;
and it is more durable than ye ! It is eternal ;
and I, who recognize it, I likewise am eter-
nal ! ' Tell me, my friend, have you no faith in
this ? "

" I have," answered Flemming, and there
was another pause. He then said : —

" I have listened to you patiently and without
interruption. Now listen to me. You complain
of the skepticism of the age. This is one form
in which the philosophic spirit of the age presents

A ROMANCE. 137

Itself. Let me tell you, that another form, which
it assumes, is that of poetic reverie. Plato of
old had drearfls like these ; and the Mystics of
the Middle Ages ; and still their disciples walk
in the cloud-land and dream-land of this poetic
philosophy. Pleasant and cool upon their souls
lie the shadows of the trees under which Plato
taught. From their whispering leaves comes,
wafted across the noise of populous centuries a
solemn and mysterious sound, which to them is
the voice of the Soul of the World. All nature
has become spiritualized and transfigured ; and,
wrapped in beautiful, vague dreams of the real and
the ideal, they live in this green world, like the
little child in the German tale, who sits by the
margin of a woodland lake, and hears the blue
heaven and • the branches overhead dispute with
their reflection in the water, which is the reality
and which the image. I willingly confess that
such day-dreams as these appeal strongly to my
imagination. Visitants and attendants are they
of those lofty souls, which, soaring ever higher
and higher, build themselves nests under the
very eaves of the stars, forgetful that they cannot
live on air, but must descend to earth for food.
Yet I recognize them as day-dreams only ; as

138 HYPERION,

shadows, not substantial things. What I mainly
dislike in the New Philosophy is the cool imper-
tinence with which an old idea, folded in a new
garment, looks you in the face and pretends not
to know you, tliough you have heen familiar
friends from childhood. I remember an English
author, who, in speaking of your German phi-
losophies, says very wisely : ' Often, a proposi-
tion of inscrutable and dread aspect, when reso-
lutely grappled with, and torn from its shady den,
and its bristling intrenchments of uncouth ter-
minology, and dragged forth into the open light
of day, to be seen by the natural eye and tried
by merely human understanding, proves to be
a very harmless truth, familiar to us from old,
sometimes so familiar as to be a truism. Too
frequently the anxious novice is reminded of
Dryden in the Battle of the Books ; there is a
helmet of rusty iron, dark, grim, gigantic ; and
within it, at the farthest corner, is a head no big-
ger than a walnut.' — Can you believe that
these words ever came from the pen of Thomas
Carlyle .' He has himself taken up the uncouth
terminology, of late ; and many pure, simple minds
are much offended at it. They seem to take it as
a personal insult. They are angry, and deny the

A ROMANCE. ' 139

just meed of praise. It is, however, hardly-
worth while to lose our presence of mind. Let
us rather profit as we may, even from this spec-
tacle, and recognize the monarch in his mas-
querade. For, hooded and wrapped about with
that strange and antique garb, there walks a
kingly, a most royal soul, even as the Emperor
Charles walked amid solemn cloisters under a
monk's cowl, — a monarch still in soul. Such
things are not new in the history of the world.
Ever and anon they sweep over the earth, and
blow themselvf s out soon ; and then there is quiet
for a season, and the atmosphere, of Truth seems
more serene. Why would you preach to the
wind } Why reason with thunder-showers ?
Better sit quiet, and see them pass over like a
pageant, cloudy, superb, and vast."

The Professor smiled self-complacently, but
said not a word. Flemming continued : —

" I will add no more than this ; — there are
many speculations in literature, philosophy, and
religion, which, though pleasant to walk in, and
lying under the shadow of great names, yet lead
to no important result. They resemble rather
those roads in the Western forests of my native
land, which, though broad and pleasant at first,

140 ' HYPERION,

and lying beneath the shadow of great branches,
finally dwmdle to a squirrel track, and run up a
tree ! "

The Professor hardly knew whether he should
laugh or be offended at this sally ; and, lay-
ing his hand upon Flemming's arm, he said se
riously : —

"Believe me, my young friend, the time will
come, when you will think more wisely on these
things. And with you, I trust, that time will
soon come ; since it moves more speedily with
some than with others. For what is Time ?
The shadow on the dial, — the striking of the
clock, — the running of the sand, — day and
night, — summer and winter, — months, years,
centuries ; — these are but arbitrary and outward
signs, — the measure of Time, not Time itself.
Time is the Life of the Soul. If not this, then
tell me, what is Time ? "

The high and animated tone of voice in which
the Professor uttered these words aroused the
Baron from his sleep ; and, not distinctly com-
prehending what was said, but thinking the Pro-
fessor asked what time it was, he innocently ex-
claimed : —

" I should think it must be near midnight ! "

A ROMANCE. ' 141

This somewhat disconcerted the Professor,
who took his leave soon afterward. When he
was gone, the Baron said : —

" Excuse me for treating your guest so cava-
herly. His philosophy annoyed me not a little ;
and I took refuge in sleep. One would think, to
judge by the language of this sect, that they alone
saw any beauty in Nature ; and, when I hear one
of them discourse, I am instantly reminded of
Goethe's Baccalaureus, when he exclaims : ' The
world was not, before I created it ; I brought the
sun up out of the sea ; with me began the changeful
course of the moon ; the day decked itself on my
account ; the earth grew green and blossomed to
meet me ; at my nod, in that first night, the pomp
of all the stars developed itself ; who but I set
you free from all the bonds of Philister-like, con-
tracting thoughts ? I, however, emancipated as
my mind assures me I am, gladly pursue my in-
ward light, advance boldly in a transport pecu
liarly my own, the bright before me, and the dark
behind ! ' — Do you not see a resemblance ?
O, they might be modest enough to confess, that
one straggling ray of light may, by some acci-
dent, reach the blind eyes of even us poor, be-
nighted heathens ! "

142 HYPERION,

" Alas ! how little veneration we have ! " said
Flemming. " I could not help closing the dis-
cussion with a jest. An ill-timed levity often
takes me by surprise. On all such occasions, I
think of a scene at the University, where, in the
midst of a grave discussion on the possibility of
Absolute Motion, a scholar said he had seen a
rock split open, from which sprang a toad, who
could not be supposed to have any knowledge
of the external world, and consequently his mo-
tion must have been absolute. The learned
Professor, who presided on that occasion, was
hardly more startled and astonished than was our
learned Professor, five minutes ago. But come ;
wind up your watch, and let us go to bed."

" By the way," said the Baron, " did you
mind what a curious head he has .' There are
two crowns upon it."

" That is a sign," replied Flemming, "that he
will eat his bread in two kingdoms."

" [ think the poor man would be very thank-
ful," said the Baron, with a smile, " if he were
always sure of eaiing it in one. He is what
the Transcendenialists call a God-intoxicated
man ; and I advise him, as Santeul advised
Bossuet, to go to Patmos and write a new Apoc-
alypse."

A ROMANCE. 14S

CHAPTER VII.

MILL-WHEELS AND OTHER WHEELS.

A PEW days after this, the Baron received
letters from his sister, telling him that her phy-
sicians had prescribed a few weeks at the Baths
of Ems, and urging him to meet her there before
the fashionable season.

" Come," said he to Flemming ; " make this
short journey with me. We will pass a few
pleasant days at Ems, and visit the other water-
ing-places of Nassau. It will drive away the
melancholy day-dreams that haunt you. Perhaps
some future bride is even now waiting for you,
with dim presentiments and undefined longings, at
the Serpent's Bath."

" Or some widow of Ems, with a cork-leg ! "
said Flemming, smiling ; and then added, in a tone
of voice half jest, half earnest, " Certainly ; let
us go in pursuit of her : —

144 HYPERION,

' Whoe'er she be,
That not impossible she,
That shall command my heart and me ;

' Where'er she lie,
Hidden from mortal eye.
In shady leaves of destiny. ' "

They started in the afternoon for Frankfort,
pursuing their way slowly along the lovely Berg-
strasse, famed throughout Germany for its beauty.
They passed the ruined house where Martin Lu-
ther lay concealed after the Diet of Worms, and
through the village of Handschuhsheimer, as old
as the days of King Pepin the Short, — a ham-
let, lying under the hills, half-buried in blossoms
and green leaves. Close on the right rose the
mountains of the mysterious Odenwald ; and on
the left lay the Neckar, like a steel bow in the
meadow. Farther westward, a thin, smoky va
por betrayed the course of the Rhine ; beyond
which, like a troubled sea, ran the blue, billowy
Alsatian hills. Song of birds, and sound of eve-
ning bells, and fragrance of sweet blossoms filled
the air ; and silent and slow sank the broad red
sun, half-hidden amid folding clouds.

" We shall not pass the night at Weinheim,"
said the Baron to the postilion, who had dis-

A ROMANCE. 145

•

mounted to walk up the hill leading to the town.
" You may drive to the mill in the valley of
Birkenau."

The postilion seized one of his fat horses by
the tailj and swung himself up to his seat again.
They rattled over the paved streets of Weinheim,
and took no heed of the host of the Golden
Eagle, who stood so invitingly at the door of
his own inn ; and the ruins of Burg Windeck,
above there, on its mountain throne, frowned
at them for hurrying by, without staying to do
him homage.

" The old ruin looks well from the valley,"
said the Baron ; " but let us beware of climb-
ing that steep hill. Most travellers are like
children ; they must needs touch whatever they
behold. They climb up to every old broken
tooth of a castle which they find on their way ,
— get a toilsome ascent and hot sunshine for
their pains, and come down wearied and disap-
pointed. I trust we are wiser."

They crossed the bridge, and turned up the
stream, passing under an arch of stone, which
serves as a gateway to this enchanted valley
of Birkenau. A cool and lovely valley, shut
in by high hills ; — shaded by alder-trees and tall
10

146 HYPERION,

poplars, under which rushes the Wechsnitz, a
noisy mountain-brook, that ever and anon puts
its broad shoulder to the wheel of a mill, and
shows that it can labor as well as laugh. At one
of these mills they stopped for the night.

A mill forms as characteristic a feature m the
romantic German landscape as in the romantic
German tale. It is not only a mill, but likewise
an alehouse and rural inn ; so that the associa-
tions it suggests are not of labor only, but also
of pleasure. It stands in the narrow defile, with
its picturesque thatched roof; thitlier throng
the peasants, of a holyday ; and there are rustic
dances under the trees.

In the twilight of the fast-approaching summer
night, the Baron and Flemming walked forth
along the borders of the stream. As they heard
it rushing and gushing among the stones and tan-
gled roots, and the great wheel turning in the cur-
rent, with its never-ceasing plash ! plash ! it
brought to their minds that exquisite, simple song
of Goethe, the Youth and the Mill-brook. It
was for the moment a nymph, which sang to them
In the voice of the waters.

" I am persuaded," said Flemming, " that,
in order fully to understand and feel the popu-

A. ROMANCE. 147

lar poetry of Germany, one must be familiar
with the German landscape. Many sweet little
poems are th§ outbreaks of momentary feelings ;
— words, to which the song of birds, the rustling
of leaves, and the gurgle of cool waters form
the appropriate music. Or perhaps I should
say they are words which man has composed to
the music of nature. Can you not, even now,
hear this brooklet telling you how it is on its way
to the mill, where at daybreak the miller's daugh-
ter opens her window, and comes down to bathe
her face in its stream, and her bosom is so full
and white, that it kindles the glow of love in the
cool waters } "

" A most delightful ballad, truly," said the
Baron. " But, like many others of our little
songs, it requires a poet to feel and understand
it. Sing them in the valley and woodland shad-
ows, and under the leafy roofs of garden walks,
and at night, and alone, as they were written
Sing them not in the loud world,. — for the loud
world laughs such things to scorn. It is Muller
who says, in that little song, where the maiden
bids the moon good evening : —

' This song was made to be sung at night,
And he who reads it in broad daylight

148 HYPERION,

Will never read the mystery right ;
And yet it is childlike easy ! '

He has written a great many pretty songs, ir.
which the momentary, indefinite longings and
impulses of the soul of man find an expression.
He calls them the Songs of a Wandering Horn-
player. There is one among them much to our
present purpose. He expresses in it the feeling
of unrest and desire of motion, which the sight
and sound of running waters often produce in us.
It is entitled, ' Whither .' ' and is worth repeating
to you.

' I heard a brooklet gushing
From its rocky fountain near,
Down into the valley rushing,
So fresh and wondrous clear.

' I know not what came o'er me.
Nor who the counsel gave ;
But I must hasten downward,
All with my pilgrim-stave.

' Downward, and ever farther.
And ever the brook beside ;
And ever fresher murmured,
And ever clearer, the tide.

' Is this the way I was going ?
Whither, O brooklet ? say !
Thou hast, with thy soft murmur.
Murmured my senses away.

A ROMANCE. 149

' What do I say of a murmur ?
That can no murmur be ;
'T is the water-nymphs, that are singing
Their roundelays under me.

' Let them sing, my friend, let them murmur
And wander merrily near ;
The wheels of a mill are going
In every brooklet clear.' "

" There you have the poetic reverie," said
Flemming, " and the dull prose commentary and
explanation in matter of fact. The song is pret-
ty ; and was probably suggested by some such
scene as this which we are now beholding.
Doubtless, all your old national traditions sprang
up in the popular mind as this song in the
poet's."

"Your opinion is certainly correct," answered
the Baron ; " and yet all this play of poetic fan-
cy does not prevent . me from feeling the chili
night-air and the pangs of hunger. Let U3 go
back to the mill, and see what our landlady has
for supper. Did you observe what a loud, sharp
voice she has .' "

" People always have, who live in mills, and
near waterfalls."

On the following morning, they emerged un-
willingly from the green, dark valley, and jour-

150 HYPERION,

neyed along the level highway to Frankfort,
where in the evening they heard the glorious Don
Giovanni of Mozart. Of all operas, this was
Flemming's favorite. What rapturous flights
of sound ! what thrilling, pathetic chimes ! what
wild, joyous revelry of passion ! what a delirium
of sense ! what an expression of agony and woe !
— all the feelings of suffering and rejoicing
humanity sympathized with and finding a voice in
those tones. Flemming and the Baron listened
with ever-increasing delight.

" How wonderful this is ! " exclaimed Flem-
ming, transported by his feelings. " How the
chorus swells and dies, like the wind of sum-
mer ! How those passages of mysterious import
seem to wave to and fro, like the swaying branch-
es of trees ; from which anon some solitary sweet
voice darts off like a bird, and floats away and
revels in the bright, warm sunshine ! And then
mark ! how, amid the chorus of a hundred voices
and a hundred instruments, — of flutes, and
drums, and trumpets, — this universal shout and
whirlwind of the vexed air, you can so clearly
distinguish the melancholy vibration of a single
string, touched by the finger, — a mournful,
sobbing sound ! Ah, this is indeed human hfe !

A ROMANCE. 151

where, in the rushing, noisy crowd, and amid
sounds of gladness, and a thousand mingling
emotions, distinctly audible to the ear of thought,
are the pulsations of some melancholy string of
the heart, touched by an invisible hand."

Then came, in the midst of these excited
feelings, the ballet, drawing its magic net about
the soul. And soon, from the tangled yet har-
monious mazes of the dance, came forth a sylph-
like form, her scarf floating behind her, as if
she were fanning the air with gauze-like wings.
Noiseless as a feather or a snow-flake falls, did
her feet touch the earth. She seemed to float
in the air, and the floor to bend and wave under
her, as a branch, when a bird alights upon it and
takes wing again. Loud and rapturous applause
followed each wonderful step, each voluptuous
moveriient ; and, with a flushed cheek and burn-
ing eye, and bosom panting to be free, stood
the gracefully majestic figure for a moment still,
and then the winged feet of the swift dancing-girls
glanced round her, and she was lost again in
the throng.

" How truly exquisite this is ! " exclaimed
the Baron, after joining loudly in the applause.

" What a noble figure ! What grace ! what

152 HYPERION,

attitudes ! How much soul in every motion !
how much expression in every gesture ! I as-
sure you, it produces upon me the same effect
as a beautiful poem. It is a poem. Every step
is a word ; and the whole together a poem ! "

The Baron and Flemming were delighted
with the scene ; and at the same time exceed
ingly amused with the countenance of an old
prude in the next box, who seemed to look upon
the whole magic show with such feelings as
Michal, Saul's daughter, experienced, when
she looked from her window and saw King
David dancing and leaping with his scanty gar-
ments.

"After all," said Flemming, "the old French
priest was not so far out of the way, when he
said, in his coarse dialect, ' The dance is the
Devil's procession ; and paint and ornaments,
the whetting of the Devil's sword ; and the ring
that is made in dancing, the Devil's grindstone,
whereon he sharpens his sword ; and finally,
— a ballet is the pomp and mass of the Devil,
and whosoever entereth therein entereth into
his pomp and mass ; for the woman who singeth
is the prioress of the Devil, and they that answer
are clerks, and they that look on are parishion-

A ROMANCE. 153

ers, and the cymbals and flutes are the bells, and
the musicians that play are the ministers of the
Devil.' "

" No doubt, this good lady near us thinks so
likewise," answered the Baron, laughing ; " out
she likes it, for all that."

When the play was over, the Baron begged
Flemming to sit still, till the crowd had gone.

" I have a strange fancy," said he, " when-
ever I come to the theatre, to see the end of all
things. When the crowd is gone, and the cur-
tain raised again to air the house, and the lamps
are all out, save here and there one behind the
scenes, the contrast with what has gone before
is most impressive. Every thing wears a dream-
like aspect. The empty boxes and stalls, the
silence, the smoky twilight, and the magic scene
dismantled, produce in me a strange, mysterious
feeling. It is like a dim reflection of a theatre
in water or in a dusty mirror, and reminds me
of some of Hoffmann's wild tales. It is a prac-
tical moral lesson, a commentary on the play,
and makes the show complete."

It was truly as he said ; only tenfold more
desolate, solemn, and impressive ; and produced
upon the mind the effect we experience, when

154 HYPERION,

slumber is suddenly broken, and dreams and
realities mingle, and we know not yet whether
we sleep or wake. As they at length passed
out through the dimly lighted passage, they heard
a vulgar-looking fellow, with a sensual face and
shaggy whiskers, say to some persons who were
standing near him, and seemed to be hangers-on
of the playhouse : —

" I shall run her six nights at Munich, and then
take her on to Vienna."

Flamming thought he was speaking of some
favorite horse. He was speaking of his beauti-
ful wife, the ballet-dancer.

A ROMANCE. 155

CHAPTER Vm.

GOETHE.

What most interested our travellers in the
ancient city of Frankfort was neither the opera
nor the Ariadne of Dannecker, but the house
in which Goethe was bom, and the scenes he
frequented in his childhood and remembered in
his old age. Such, for example, are the walks
around the city, outside the moat ; the bridge
over the Maine, with the golden cock on the
cross, which the poet beheld and marvelled at
when a boy ; the cloister of the Barefooted
Friars, through which he stole with mysterious
awe to sit by the oilcloth-covered table of old
Rector Albrecht ; and the garden in which his
grandfather walked up and down among fruit-
trees and rose-bushes, in long morning-gown,
black velvet cap, and the antique leather gloves,
which he annually received as Mayor on Pipers-

156 HYPERION,

Doomsday, representing a kind of middle pe"--
sonage between Alcinous and Laertes. Thus,
O Genius ! are thy foot-prints hallowed ; and
the star shines for ever over the place of thy na-
tivity.

" Your English critics may rail as they list,"
said the Baron, while he and Flamming were
returning from a stroll in the leafy gardens out-
side the moat ; " but, after all, Goethe was a
magnificent old fellow. Only think of his life ;
his youth of passion, alternately aspiring and,
desponding, stormy, impetuous, headlong ; — •
his romantic manhood, in which passion assumes
the form of strength ; assiduous, careful, toiling,
without haste, without rest ; — and his sublime
old age, — the age of serene and classic repose,
where he stands like Atlas, as Claudian has
painted him in the Battle of the Giants, holding
the world aloft upon his head, the ocean-streams
hard frozen in his hoary locks."

" A good •illustration of what the world calls
his indifferentism."

" And do you know I rather like this indiffer-
entism ? Did you never have the misfortune to
live in a community, where a difficulty in the
parish seemed to' announce the end of the world .''

A ROMANCE. 157

or to know one of the benefactors of the human
race, in the very ' storm and pressure period '
of his indiscreet enthusiasm ? If you have, I
think you wfill see something beautiful in the calm
and dignified attitude which the old philosopher
assumes."

" It is a pity that his admirers had not a little
of this philosophic coolnfess. It amuses me to
read the various epithets which they apply to
him : — The Dear, dear Man ! The Life-enjoy-
ing Man ! The All-sided One ! The Repre-
sentative of Poetry upon Earth ! The Many-
sided Master-Mind of Germany ! His enemies
rush into the other extreme, and hurl at him the
fierce names of Old Humbug ! and Old Heathen !
which hit like pistol-bullets."

" I confess, he was no saint."

" No ; his philosophy is the old ethnic phi-
losophy. You will find it all in a convenient and
concentrated portable form in Horace's beauti-
ful Ode to Thaliarcus. What I most object to
in the old gentleman is his sensuality."

" O, nonsense ! Nothing can be purer than the
Iphigenia ; it is as cold and passionless as a mar-
ble statue."

" Very true ; but you cannot say the same of

158 HYPERION,

some of the Roman Elegies, and of that monstrous
book, the Elective Affinities."

"'Ah, my friend, Goethe is an artist ; and
looks upon all things as objects of art merely.
Why should he not be allowed to copy m words
what painters and sculptors copy in colors and in
marble .'' "

" The artist shows his character in the choice
of his subject. Goethe never "sculptured an
Apollo, nor painted a Madonna. He gives us
only sinful Magdalens and rampant Fauns. He
does not so much idealize as realize."

" He only copies nature."

" So did the artists who made the bronze
lamps of Pompeii. Would you hang one of
those in your hall .' TjO say that a man is an
artist and copies nature is not enough. There
are two great schools of art ; the imitative and the
imaginative. The latter is the most noble, and
the most enduring ; and Goethe belonged rather
to the former. Have you read Menzel's attack
upon him .' "

" It is truly ferocious. The Silesian hews
into him lustily. I hope you do not take sides
with him."

" By no means. He goes too far. He blames

A EOMANCE. 159

the poet for not being a politician. He might as
well blame him for not being a missionary to the
Sandwich Islands."

" And what do you think of Eckermann ? "

" I think he is a kind of German Boswell.
Goethe knew he was drawing his portrait, and
sat for it accordingly. He works very hard to
make a Saint Peter out of an old Jupiter, as the
Cathohcs did at Rome."

" Well, call him Old Humbug, or Old Hea-
then, or what you please ; I maintain, that, with
all his errors and short- comings, he was a glori-
ous specimen of a man."

" He certainly was. Did it ever occur to you
that he was in some points like Ben Franklin, —
a kind of rhymed Ben Franklin .? The practical
tendency of his mind was the same ; his love
of science was the same ; his benignant, philo-
sophic spirit was the same ; and a vast number
of his little poetic maxims and soothsayings seem
nothing more than the worldly wisdom of Poor
Richard, versified."

" What most oifends me is, that now every
German jackass must have a kick at the dead
lion."

" And every one who passes through Weimar

160 HYPERION,

must throw a book upon his grave, as travellers
did of old a stone upon the grave of Manfredi,
at Benevento. But, of all that has been said or
sung, what most pleases me is Heine's Apologet
ic, if I may so call it ; in which he says, that
the minor poets, who flourished under the im-
perial reign of Goethe, ' resemble a young forest,
where the trees first show their own magnitude
after the oak of a hundred years, whose branch-
es had towered above and overshadowed them,
has fallen. There was not wanting an opposi-
tion that strove against Goethe, this majestic
tree. Men of the most warring opinions united
themselves for the contest. The adherents of
the old faith, the orthodox, were vexed that
in the trunk of the vast tree no niche with its
holy image was to be found ; nay, that even the
naked Dryads of paganism were permitted to
play their witchery there ; and gladiy, with con-
secrated axe, would they have imitated the holy
Boniface, and levelled the enchanted oak to the
ground. The followers of the new faith, the
apostles of Liberahsm, were vexed, on the other
hand, that the tree could not serve as a Lib-
erty Tree, or, at any rate, as a barricade. In
fact, the tree was too high ; no one could plant

A ROMANCE. 161

the red cap upon its summit, or dance the Car-
magnole beneath its branches. The multitude,
however, venerated this tree for the very reason
that it reared itself with such independent gran-
deur, and so graciously filled the world with its
odor, while its branches, streaming magnificently
toward heaven, made it appear as if the stars
were only the golden fruit of its wondrous limbs.'
Do you not think that jjeautiful ? "

" Yes, very beautiful. And I am glad to see
that you can find something to admire in my fa-
vorite author, notwithstanding his frailties ; or, to
use an old German saying, that you can drive
the hens out of the garden without trampling
down the beds."

"Here is the old gentleman himself!" ex-
claimed Flemmmg.

" Where .'' " cried the Baron, as if for the
moment he expected to see the living figure of
the poet walking before them.

" Here at the window, — that full-length cast.
Excellent, — is it not .' He is dressed, as usual,
in his long yellow nankeen surtout, with a white
cravat crossed in front. What a magnificent
head ! and what a posture ! He stands like a
11

162 HYPERION,

tower of strength. And, by Heavens ! he was
nearly eighty years old, when that was made."

" How do you know ? "

" You can see by the date on the pedestal."

" You are right. And yet how erect he stands,
with his square shoulders braced back, and his
hands behind him ! He looks as if he were
standing before the fire. I feel tempted to put
a live coal into his hand, it lies so invitingly half-
cpen. Oleim's description of him, • soon after
he went to Weimar, is very different from this.
Do you recollect it .' "

"No, I do not."

" It is a story which good old father Gleim
used to tell with great delight. He was one
evening reading the Gottingen Musen-Almanach
in a select society at Weimar, when a young man
came in, dressed in a short, green shooting-jack-
et, booted and spurred, and having a pair of
brilliant, black, Italian eyes. He, in turn, offered
to read ; but finding, probably, the poetry of the
Musen-Almanach of that year rather too insipid
for him, he soon began to improvise the wildest
and most fantastic poems imaginable, and in all
possible forms and measures, pretending all the
while to read from the book. ' That is either

A ROMANCE. • 1 G-l

Goethe or the Devil,' said good old father Gleim
to Wieland, who sat near him. To which the
' Great I of Osmannstadt ' replied, — ' It is both,
for he has the Devil in him to-night ; and at such
times he is like a wanton colt, that flings out
before and behind, and you will do well not to go
too near him ! ' "

" Very good ! "

" And now that noble figure is but mould.
Only a few months ago, those majestic eyes
looked for the last time on the light of a pleasant
spring morjiing. Calm, like a god, the old man
sat ; and with a smile seemed to bid farewell to
the light of day, on which he had gazed for
more than eighty years. Books were near him,
and the pen which had just dropped, as it were,
from his dying fingers. ' Open the shutters, and
let in more light ! ' were the last words that came
from those lips. Slowly stretching forth his hand,
he seemed to write in the air ; and, as it sank
down again and was motionless, the spirit of the
old man departed."

" And yet the world goes on. It is strange
how soon, when a great man dies, his place is
filled ; and so completely, that he seems no
longer wanted. But let us step in here. I wish
tr> hnv that cast."

104 HYPERION,

CHAPTER IX.

THE DAYLIGHT OF THE DWARFS, AND THE
FALLING STAR.

After lingering a day or two in Frankfort,
the two friends struck across through Hochheim
to the Rhine, and then up among the hills of the
Rheingau to Schlangenbad, where they tarried
only to bathe and to dine, and then pursued
their way to Langenschwalbach. The town lies
in a valley, with gently sloping hills around it,
and long avenues of poplars leading forth into the
fields. One interminable street cuts the town
in twain, and there are old houses with curious
faces carved upon their fronts, and dates of the
olden time.

Our travellers soon sallied forth from their
hotel, impatient to drink the strength-giving wa-
ters of the fountains. They continued their walk

A ROMANCE. 16d

lar up the valley under the poplars. The new
grain was waving in the fields ; the birds singing
in the trees and in the air ; and every thing seem-
ed glad, save a poor old man, who came totter-
ing out of the woods, with a heavy bundle of
sticks on his shoulders.

Returning upon their steps, they passed down
the valley and through the long street to the
tumble-down old Lutheran church. A flight of
stone steps leads from the street to the green
terrace or platform on which the church stands,
and which, in ancient times, was the church-yard,
or, as the Germans more devoutly say, God's-
acre ; where generations are scattered like seeds,
and that which is sown in corruption shall be
raised hereafter in incorruption. Oti the steps
stood an old man, — a very old man, — holding
a little girl by the hand. He took off his greasy
cap as they passed, and wished them good day
His teeth were gone ; he could hardly articulate
a syllable. The Baron asked him how old the
church was. He gave no answer ; but when
the question was repeated, came close up to
them, and, taking off his cap again, turned his
ear attentively, and said : —

" I am hard of hearing."

166 HYPERION,

" Poor old man," said Flemming; " he is as
much a ruin as the church we are enterbg. It
will not be long before he, too, shall be sown as
seed in this God's-acre ! "

The little girl ran into a house close at hand,
and brought out the great key. The church-door
swung open, and, descending a few steps, they
passed through a low-roofed passage into the
church. All was in ruin. The gravestones in
the pavement were started from their places ;
the vaults beneath yawned ; the roof above was
falling piecemeal ; there were rents in the old
tower ; and mysterious passages, and side doors
with crazy flights of wooden steps, leading down
into the church-yard. Amid all this ruin, one
thing only stood erect ; it was a statue of a knight
in armor, standing in a niche under the pulpit.

" Who is this .' " said Flemming to the ojd
sexton ; " who is this, that stands here so sol-
emnly in marble, and seems to be keeping guard
over the dead men below .' "

" I do not know," repHed the old man ; " but
I have heard my grandfather say it was the statue
of a great warrior ! "

" There is history for you ! " exclaimed the
Baron. " There is fame ! To have a statue of

A ROMANCE. 167

marble, and yet have your name forgotten by the
sexton of your parish, who can remember only
that he once heard his grandfather say that you
were a great warrior ! "

Flemming made no reply, for he was thinking
of the days, when, from that old pulpit, some bold
reformer thundered down the first tidings of a new
doctrine, and the roof echoed with the grand old
hymn of Martin Luther.

When he communicated his thoughts to the
Baron, the only answer he received was : —

" After all, what is the use of so much preach-
ing ? Do you think the fishes, that heard the ser-
mon of St. Anthony, were any better than those
who did not .'' I commend to your favorable
notice the fish-sermon of this saint, as recorded
by Abraham k Sancta Clara. You will find it in
your favorite Wonder-Horn."

Thus passed the day at Langenschwalbach ;
and the evening at the Allee-Saal was quite
solitary ; for as yet no company had arrived
to fill its chambers, or sit under the trees before
the door. The next morning even Flemming
and the Baron were gone ; for the German's
heart was beating with strong desire to embrace
his sister ; and the heait of his friend cared little

168 HYPERION,

whither he went, sobeit he were not too much
alone.

After a few hours' drive, they were looking
down from the summit of a hill directly upon
the house-tops of Ems. There it lay, deep
sunk in the hollow beneath them, as if some in-
habitant of Sirius, like him spoken of in Vol-
taire's tale of Micromegas, held it in the hollow
of his hand. High and peaked rise the hills
that throw their shadows into this romantic val-
ley, and at their base winds the river Lahn.
Our travellers drove through the one long street
composed entirely of hotels and lodging-houses.
Sick people looked out of the windows, as they
passed. Others were walking leisurely up and
down, beneath the few decapitated trees, which
represent a public promenade ; and a boy, with
a blue frock and crimson cap, was driving three
donkeys down the street. In short, they were
in a fashionable watering-place ; as yet sprinkled
only by a few pattering drops of the summer rain
of strangers, which generally follows the first hot
days.

On alighting at the London Hotel, the Baron
found — not his sister, but only a letter from her,
saying she had changed her mind and gone to the

A ROMANCE. 169

Baths of Franconia. This was a disappoint-
ment, which the Baron pocketed with the letter,
and said not a word more about either. It was
his way, — his philosophy in small things and
great. In the evening, they went to an {esthetic
tea, at the house of the Frau Kranich, the wife
of a rich banker of Frankfort.

" I must tell you about this Frau Kranich,''
said the Baron to Flemming, on the way. " She
is a woman of talent and beauty, and just in the
prime of life ; but, unfortunately, very ambi-
tious. Her mania is, to make a figure in the
fashionable world ; and to this end she married
a rich banker of Frankfort, old enough to be her
father, not to say her grandfather, hoping, doubt-
less, that he would soon die ; for, if ever a wo-
man wished to be a widow, she is that woman.
But the old fellow is tough and won't die.
Moreover, he is deaf, and crabbed, and penuri-
ous, and half the time bedridden. The wife is
a model of virtue, notwithstanding her weakness.
She nurses the old gentleman as if he were a
child. And, to crown all, he hates society, and
will not hear of his wife's receiving or going into
company."

" How, then, can she give soirees .'' " asked
Flemming.

170 HYPERION,

" I was just going to tell you," continued the
Baron. " The gay lady has no taste for long
evenings with the old gentleman in the back
chamber, — for being thus chained like a crimi-
nal under Mezentius, face to face witli a dead
body. So she puts him to bed first, and "

" Gives him opium."

" Yes, I dare say ; and then gives herself a
soiree, without his knowing any thing about it.
This course of deception is truly hateful in itself,
and must be particularly so to her, for she is not
a low or an immoral woman ; but one of those,
who, not having strength enough to complete the
sacrifice they have had strength enough to com
mence, are betrayed into a life of duplicity and
falsehood."

They had now reached the house, and were
ushered into a room gaily lighted and filled with
guests. The hostess came forward to receive
them, dressed in white, and sailing down the
room like a swan. When the customary salu-
tations had passed and Flemming had been duly
presented, the Baron said, not without a certain
degree of malice : —

" And, my dear Frau Kranich, how is your
good husband to night ? "

A ROMANCE. 171

This question was about as discreet as a can
non-ball. But the lady replied, in the simplicity
of her heart, and not in the least disconcerted : —

" The same as ever, my dear Baron. It is
astonishing how he holds out. But let us not
talk of these things now. I must introduce your
friend to his countryman, the Grand Duke of
Mississippi ; alike remarkable for his wealth, his
modesty, and the extreme simplicity of his
manners. He drives only six horses. Besides,
he is known as a man of learning and piety ; —
has his private chapel, and private clergyman,
who always preaches against the vanity of world-
ly riches. He has also a private secretary,
whose sole duty is to smoke to him, that he may
enjoy the aroma of Spanish cigars, without the
trouble of smoking."

" Decidedly a man of genius ! "

Here Flemming was introduced to his illustri-
ous countryman ; a person who seemed to con-
sist chiefly of linen, such a display did he make
of collar, bosom, and wristbands.

" Pray, Mr. Flemming, what do you think
of that Rembrandt .' " said he, pointing to a
picture on the wall. " Exquisite picture ! The
grandeur of sentiment and splendor of chia-

172 HYPERION,

roscuro are of the first order. Just observe the
liquidity of the water,, and the silveriness of
the clouds ! Great power ! There is a bra-
vura of handling in that picture. Sir, which
it requires the eye of the connoisseur to ap-
preciate."

" Yes, a most undoubted — copy ! "

And here their conversation ended ; for at that
moment the little Moldavian Prince Jerkin made
his way through the crowd, with his snuff-box
as usual in his hand, and hurried up to Flem-
ming, whom he had known in Heidelberg. He
was eager to let every one know that he spoke
English, and in his haste began by making a
mistake.

" Good bye ! Good bye ! Mr. Flemming ! "
said he, instead of good evening. " I am rav-
ished to see you in Ems. Nice place ; — all
that there is of most nice. I drink my water and
am good ! Do you not think the Frau Kranich
has a very beautiful leather } "

He meant skin. Flemming laughed outright ;
but it was not perceived by the Prince, because
at that moment he was pushed aside, in the rush
of a gallopade, and Flemming beheld his face
no more. At the same moment the Baron m-

A ROMANCE. 173

troduced a friend of his, who also spoke English
and said : —

" You will sup with me to-night. I have
some Rhine-wine, which will be a seduction
to you."

Soon after, die Baron stood with an impas-
sioned, romantic lady leaning on his arm, exam-
ining a copy of Raphael's Fornarina.

" Ach ! I wish I had been the Fornarina,"
sighed the impassioned, romantic lady.

" Then, my dear Madam," replied the Baron,
" I wish I had been Raphael."

And so Ukewise said to himself a very tall man
with fiery red hair and fancy whiskers, who was
waltzing round and round in one spot, and in a
most extraordinary waistcoat ; thus representing
a fiery floating-light, to warn men of the hidden
rocks on which the breath of vanity drives them
shipwreck. At length, his partner, tired of spin-
ning, sank upon a sofa, like a child's top, when it
reels and falls.

" You do not like the waltz ? " said an elderly
French gentleman, remarking the expression of
Flemming's countenance.

" O, yes ; among the figurantes of the opera.
But I confess, it sometimes makes me shudder to

174 HYPERION,

see a young rake clasp his arms round the waist
of a pure and innocent girl. What would you
say, were you to see him sitting on a sofa with
his arms round your wife ?"

" Mere prejudice of education," replied the
French gentleman. " I know that situation. I
have read all about it in the BibUotheque de
Romans Choisis I "

And merrily went the dance ; and bright eyes
and flushed cheeks were not wanting among thp
dancers ;

" And they waxed red, and waxed warm,
And rested, panting, arm in arm " ;

and the Strauss-waltzes sounded pleasantly in the
ears of Flemming, who, though he never danced,
yet, like Henry of Ofterdingen, in the romance
of Novalis, thought to music. The wheeling
waltz set the wheels of his fancy going. And
thus the moments glided on, and the footsteps
of Time were not heard amid the sound of music
and voices.

But suddenly this scene of gayety was inter-
rupted. The door opened wide ; and the short
figure of a gray-haired old man presented itself,
with a flushed countenance and wild eyes. He
was but half-dressed, and in his hand held a

A ROMANCE, 17,'i

silver candlestick without a light. A sheet was
wound round his head, like a turban ; and he
tottered forward with a vacant, bewildered look,
exclaiming : —

" I am Mahomet, the king of the Jews ! "

At the same moment he fell in a swoon, and
was borne out of the room by the servants.
Flemming looked at the lady of the festival, and
she was deadly pale. For a moment, all was con-
fusion ; and the dance and the music stopped.
The impression produced on the company was
at once ludicrous and awful. They tried in vain
to rally. The whole society was like a dead
body, from which the spirit has departed. Ere
long, the guests had all dispersed, and left the
lady of the mansion to her mournful, expiring
lamps, and still more mournful reflections.

" Truly," said Flemming to the Baron, as
they wended their way homeward, " this seems
not like reality ; but like one of the sharp con-
trasts we find in novels. Who shall say, after
this, that there is not more romance in real life
than we find written in books ?"

" Not more rpmance," said the Baron, " but
a different romance."

A still more tragic scene had been that even-

176 HYPERION,

mg enacted in Heidelberg. Just as the sun set,
two female figures walked along the romantic
woodland pathway, leading to the Angel's Mead
ow, a little green opening on the brow of one of
the high hills which see themselves in the Neckar
and hear the solemn bells of Kloster-Neuburg.
The evening shadows were falling broad and
long ; and the cuckoo began to sing.

" Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! " said the eldest of the
two figures, repeating an old German popular
rhyme, —

" ' Cuckoo ! cuckoo '
Tell me true,
Tell me fair and fine,
How long must I unmarried'pine? ' "

It was the voice of an evil spirit, that spoke in
the person of Madeleine ; and the pale and shrink-
ing figure, that walked by her side, and listened
to those words, was Emma of Ilmenau. A young
man joined them, where the path turns into the
thick woodlands ; and they disappeared among
the shadowy branches. It was the Polish Count.

The forget-me-nots looked up to heaven with
their meek blue eyes, from their home in the
Angel's Meadow. Calmly stood the mountain
of All-Saints, in its majestic, holy stillness ; — ■
the river flowed so far below, that the murmur

A ROMANCE. 177

of its waters was not heard ; — there was not a
sigh of the evening wind among the leaves, — not
a sound upon the earth nor in the air ; — and yet
that night there fell a star from heaven !

12

178 HYPERIOiy,

CHAPTER X.

THE PARTING.

It was now that season of the year, which an
old English writer calls the amiable month of
June, and at that hour of the day, when, face to
face, the rising moon beholds the setting sun.
As yet the stars were few in heaven. But, after
the heat of the day, the coolness and the twilight
descended like a benediction upon the earth, by
all those gentle sounds attended which are the
meek companions of the night.

Flemming and the Baron had passed the after-
noon at the Castle. They had rambled once more
together, and for the last time, over the magnifi-
cent ruin. On the morrow they were to part,
perhaps for ever. The Baron was going to Ber-
lin, to join his sister ; and Flemming, driven for-
ward by the restless spirit within him, longed once
more for a change of scene, and was to start for

A ROMANCE. 179

the Tyrol and Switzerland. Alas ! he never said
to the passing hour, " Stay, for thou art fair ! "
but reached forward into the dark future, with
unsatisfied longings and aimless desires that were
never still.

As the day was closing, they sat down on the
terrace of Elizabeth's Garden. The sun had
set beyond the blue Alsatian hills ; and on the
valley of the Rhine fell the purple mist, like the
mantle of tlie departing prophet from his fiery
chariot. Over the castle walls and tlie trees of
the garden rose the large moon ; and between
the contending daylight and moonlight there were
as yet no shadows. But at length the shadows
came, — transparent and faint outlines, that deep-
ened into form. In the valley below only the
river gleamed, like steel ; and here and there the
lamps were lighted in the town. Solemnly stood
the leafy linden-trees in the garden near them,
their trunks in darkness and their summits bronzed
with moonlight ; and in his niche in the great
round tower, overhung with ivy, like a majestic
phantom, stood the gray statue of Louis, with his
venerable beard, and shirt of mail, and flowing
mantle ; and the mild, majestic countenance look-
ed forth into the silent night, as the countenance

180 HrPERION,

of a seer who reads the stars. At intervals, the
wind of the summer ,night passed through the
ruined castle and the trees, and they sent forth a
sound as if Nature were sighing in her dreams ;
and for a moment, overhead, the broad leaves
gently clashed together, like brazen cymbals, with
a tinkling sound ; and then all was still, save the
sweet, passionate song of nightingales, that no-
where sing more sweetly than in the gardens of
Heidelberg Castle.

The hour, the scene, and the near-approaching
separation of the two young friends had filled
their hearts with a pleasant, though at the same
time not painless excitement. They had been
conversing about the magnificent old ruin, and the
ages in which it had been built, and the vicissi-
tudes of time and war, that had battered down its
walls, and left it " tenantless, save to the cranny-
ing wind."

" How sorrowful and sublime is the face of
that statue yonder ! " said Flemming. " It re-
minds me of the old Danish hero Beowulf ; for
' careful, sorrowing, he seeth in his son's bower
the wine-hall deserted, the resort of the wind,
noiseless ; the knight sleepeth ; the warrior lieth
in darkness ; there is no noise of the harp, no
joy in the dwellings, as there was before.' "

A ROMANCE. 181

" Even as you say," replied the Baron ; "but
it often astonishes me, that, coming from that
fresh green world of yours beyond the sea, you
should feel so much interest in these old things ;
nay, at times, seem so to have drunk in their
spirit, as really to live in the times of old. For
my part, I do not see what charm there is in the
pale and wrinkled countenance of the Past, so to
entice the soul of a young man. It seems to me
like falling in love with one's grandmother. Give
me the Present, — warm, glowing, palpitating
with life. She is my mistress ; and the Future
stands waiting like my wife that is to be, — for
whom, to tell the truth, I care very little just
now. Indeed, my friend, I wish you would take
more heed of this philosophy of mine ; and not
waste the golden hours of youth in vain regrets
for the past, and indefinite, dim longings for the
future. Youth comes but once in a lifetime."

" Therefore," said Flemming, " let us so en-
joy it as to be still young when we are old. For
my part, I grow happier as I grow older. When
I compare' my sensations and enjoyments now
with what they were ten years ago, the compari-
son is vastly in favor of the present. Much of
the fever and fretfulness of life is over. The

182 HYPERION,

world and I look each other more calmly in the
face. My mind is more self-possessed. It ha=
done me good to be somewhat parched by the
heat and drenched by the rain of hfe."

" Now you speak like an old philosopher," an-
swered the Baron, laughing. " But you deceive
yourself. I never knew a more restless, feverish
spirit than yours. Do not think you have gained
the mastery yet. You are only riding at anchor
here in an eddy of the stream ; you will soon be
swept away again in the mighty current and whirl
of accident. Do not trust this momentary calm.
I know you better than you know yourself.
There is something Faust-like in you ; you would
fain grasp the highest and the deepest, and ' reel
from desire to enjoyment, and in enjoyment lan-
guish for desire.' When a momentary change of
feeling comes over you, you think the change per-
manent, and thus hve in constant self-deception."

" I confess," said Flemniing, " there may be
some truth in what you say. There are times
when my soul is restless ; and a voice sounds
within me, like the trump of the archangel, and
thoughts that were buried, long ago, come out of
their graves. At such times my favorite occupa-
tions and pursuits no longer charm me. The
quiet face of Nature seems to mock me."

A ROMANCE. 183

" There, certainly are seasons," replied the
Baron, " when Nature seems not to sympathize
with her beloved children. She sits there so
eternally calm and self-possessed, so very moth-
erly and serene, and cares so little whether the
heart of her child breaks or not, that at times I
almost lose my patience. About that, too, she
cares so little, that, out of sheer obstinacy, I be-
come good-humored again, and then she smiles."

" I think we must confess, however," con-
tinued Flemming, " that all this springs from our
own imperfection, not from hers. How beautiful
is this green world which we inhabit ! See yon-
der, how the moonlight mingles with the mist !
What a glorious night is this ! Truly, every man
has a Paradise around him, until he sins, and the
angel of an accusing conscience drives him from
his Eden. And even then there are holy hours,
when this angel sleeps, and man comes back,
and, with the innocent eyes of a child, looks into
his lost Paradise again, — into the broad gates
and rural solitudes of Nature. I feel this often.
We have much to enjoy in the quiet and retire-
ment of our own thoughts. Boisterous mirth and
loud laughter are not my mood. I love that tran-
quillity of soul, in which we feel the blessing of

184 HYPERION,

existence, and which in itself is a prayer and a
thanksgiving. I find, however, that, as I grow old-
er, I love the country less, and the town more."

" Yes," interrupted the Baron ; " and pres-
ently you will love the town less and the country
more. Say at once, that you have an undefined
longing for both ; and prefer town or country,
according to the mood you are in. I think a
man must be of a very quiet and happy nature,
who can long endure the country ; and, more-
over, very well contented with his own insignifi-
cant person, very self-complacent, to be continu-
ally occupied with himself and his own thoughts.
To say the least, a town life makes one more
tolerant and liberal in one's judgment of others.
One is not eternally wrapped up in self-contem-
plation ; which, after all, is only a more holy kind
of vanity."

In conversation like this, the hours glided away;
till at length, from the Giant's Tower, the castle
clock struck twelve, with a sound that seemed to
come from the Middle Ages. Like watchmen
from their belfries, the city clocks answered it,
one by one. Then distant and muffled sounds
were heard. Inarticulate words seemed to blot
the foggy air, as if written on wet paper. These

A ROMANCE. 185

were the bells of Handschuhsheimer, and of other
vilkges on the broad plain of the Rhine and
among the hills of the Odenwald ; mysterious
sounds, that seemed not of this world.

Beneath them, in the shadow of the hills, lay
the valley, — fathomless, black, impenetrable.
Above were the cloistered stars, that, nun-like,
walk the holy aisles of heaven. The city was
asleep in the valley below ; all asleep and silent,
save the clocks-, that had just struck twelve, and
the veering, golden weathercocks, that were swim-
ming in the moonlight, like golden fishes in a glass
vase. And again the wind of the summer night
passed through the old castle, and the trees, and
the nightingales recorded under the dark, shad-
owy leaves, and the heart of Flemming was- full.

When he had retired to his chamber, a feeling
of utter loneliness came over him. The night
before one begins a journey is always a dismal
night ; for, as Byron says,

" In leaving even the most unpleasant people
And places, one keeps looking at tlic steeple I "

and how much more so when the place and peo-
ple are pleasant ! as was the case with those that
Flemming was now leaving. No wonder he was
sad and sleepless. Thoughts came and went,

186 HYPERION.

and bright and gloomy fancies, and dreams and
visions, and sweet faces looked under his closed
eyelids, and vanished away, and came again, and
again departed. He heard the clock strike from
hour to hour, and said, " Another hour is gone."
At length the birds began to sing ; and ever and
anon the cock crew. He arose, and looked forth
into the gray dawn ; and before him lay the city
he was so soon to leave, all white and ghastly,
like a city that had arisen from its grave.

" All things must change," said he to the
Baron, as he embraced him, and held him by the
hand. " Friends must be torn asunder, and
swept along in the current of events, to see each
other seldom, and perchance no more. For ever
and ever in the eddies of time and accident we
whirl away. Besides which, some of us have a
perpetual motion in our wooden heads, as Wo-
denblock had in his wooden leg ; and like him we
travel on, without rest or sleep, and have hardly
time to take a friend by the hand in passing ; and
at length are seen hurrying through some distant
land, worn to a skeleton, and all unknown."

BOOK THE THIRD.

" Take away the lights, too ;
The moon lends me too much to find my fears.
And those devotions I am now to pay
Are written in my heart, not in thy book ;
And I shall read them there without a taper."

BOOK THE THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

SUMMER-TIME.

They were right, — those old German Minne-
singers, — to sing the pleasant summer-time !
What a time it is ! How June stands illuminated
in the calendar ! The windows are all wide
open ; only the Venetian blinds closed. Here
and there a long streaii of sunshine streams in
through a crevice. We hear the low sound of
the wind among the trees ; and, as it swells and
freshens, the distant doors clap to, with a sudden
sound. The trees are heavy with leaves ; and
the gardens full of blossoms, red and white. The
whole atmosphere is laden with perfume and sun-
shine. The birds sing. The cock struts about,
and crows loftily. Insects chirp in the grass.
Yellow buttercups stud the green ,carpet like

l&O HrPEKION,

golden buttons, and the red blossoms of the clo-
ver like rubies. The elm-trees reach their long,
pendulous branches almost to the ground. White
clouds sail aloft ; and vapors fret the blue sky
with silver threads. The white village gleams
afar against the dark hills. Through the meadow
winds tlie river, — careless, indolent. It seems
to love the country, and is in no haste to reach
the sea. The bee only is at work, — the hot
and angry bee. All things else are at play ; he
never plays, and is vexed that any one should.

People drive out from town to breathe, and to
be happy. Most of them have flowers in their
hands ; bunches of apple-blossoms, and still
oftener lilacs. Ye denizens of the crowded city,
how pleasant to you is the change from the sultry
streets to the open field, fragrant with clover-
blossoms ! how pleasant the fresh, breezy coun-
try air, dashed with brine from the meadows !
how pleasant, above all. the flowers, — the mani-
fold, beautiful flowers !

It is no longer day. Through the trees rises
the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen.
In the vast shadow of night, the coolness and the
dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy
them ; and hear only the voice of the summer

A ROMANCE. 19l

wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the
great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of
grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers,
but I know that they are there. Far away in the
meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp
of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge.
Then all is still, save the continuous wind of the
summer night. Sometimes I know not if it be
the wind or the sound of the neighbouring sea.
The village clock strikes ; and I feel that I am
not alone.

How different is it in the city ! It is late, and
the crowd is gone. You step out upon the bal-
cony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool,
dewy night, as if you folded her garments about
you. Beneath lies the public walk with trees,
like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent
darkness the spirit plunges and floats away, with
some beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The
lamps are still burning up and down the long
street. People go by, with grotesque shadows,
now foreshortened, and now lengthening away into
the darkness and vanishing, while a new one
springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass
him, revolving like the sail of a windmill. The
iron gates of tlie park shut with a jangling clang.

192 HYPERION,

There are footsteps and loud voices ; — a tu-
mult, — a drunken brawl, — an alarm of fire ; —
then silence again. And now at length the city
is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated
moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to
welcome her. The moonlight is broken. It
lies here and there in the squares, and the open-
ing of streets, — angular, like blocks of white
marble.

Under such a green, triumphal arch, O Readei ,
with the odor of flowers about thee, and the song
of birds, shalt thou pass onward into the en
chanted land, as through the Ivory Gate of
dreams ! And as a prelude and majestic march,
one sweet human voice, coming from the bosom
of the Alps, sings this sublime ode, which the
Alpine echoes repeat afar.

" Come, golden Evening ! in the west

Entlirone the storm-dispeding sun,
And let the triple rainbow rest

O'er all the mountain-tops. *T is done ; —
The tempest ceases ; bold and bright,

The rainbow shoots from hill to hill ;
Down sinks the sun ; on presses night ; —

Mont Blanc is lovely still !

A. ROMANCE. 193

•' There take thy stand, my spirit ; — spread

The world of shadows at thy feet ;
And mark how calmly, overhead,

The stars, like saints in glory, meet.
While hid in solitude sublime,

Methinks I muse on Nature's tomb,
And hear the passing foot of Time

Step through the silent gloom.

" All in a moment, crash on crash,

From precipice to precipice.
An avalanche's ruins dash

Down to the nethermost abyss.
Invisible ; the ear alone

Pursues the uproar till it dies ;
Echo to echo, groan for groan,

From deep to deep, replies.

*' Silence asain the darkness seals.

Darkness that may be felt ; — but soon
The silver-clouded east reveals

The midnight spectre of the moon
In half-eclipse she lifts her horn.

Yet o'er the host of heaven supreme
Brings the faint semblance of a morn.

With her awakening beam.

" Ah ! at her touch, these Alpine heights
Unreal mockeries appear ;
With blacker shadows, ghastlier lights.
Emerging as she climbs the sphere;

13

194 HTPERION,

A crowd of apparitions pale !

I hold my brealh in chill suspense,
They seem so exquisitely frail,

Lest they should vanish hence.

" I breathe again, I freely breathe ;

Thee, Leman's Lake, once more I trace,
Like Dian's crescent far beneath

As beautiful as Dian's face :
Pride of the land that gave me birth !

All that thy wraves reflect I love,
Where heaven itself, brought down to eart,S,

Looks fairer than above.

" Safe on thy banks again I stray ;

The trance of poesy is o'er,
And I am here at dawn of day,

Gazing on mountains as before,
Where all the strange mutations wrought

Were magic feats of my own mind ;
For, m tnat fairy land of thought,

Whate'er I seek, 1 lind."

A ROMANCE. J 95

CHAPTER II.

FOOT-TRAVELLING.

Tell me, my soul, why art thou restless t
Why dost thou look forward to the future with
such strong desire ? The present is thine, —
and the past ; — and the future shall be ! O, that
thou didst look forward to the great hereafter
with half the longing wherewith thou longest for
an earthly future, — which a few days, at most,
will bring thee ! to the meeting of the dead, as
to the meeting of the absent ! Thou glorious
spirit-land ! O, that I could behold thee as thou
art, — the region of hfe, and light, and love, and
the dwelling-place of those beloved ones whose
being has flowed onward, like a silver-clear stream
into the solemn-sounding main, into the ocean of
Eternity !

Such were the thoughts that passed through the
soul of riemming, as he lay in utter solitude and

196 HYPERION,

silence on the rounded summit of one of the
mountains of the Furca Pass, and gazed, with
tears in his eyes, and ardent longing in his heart,
into the blue, swimming heaven overhead, and at
the glaciers and snowy mountain-peaks around
him. Highest and whitest of all stood the peak
of the Jungfrau, which seemed near him, though
it rose afar oiF from the bosom of the Lauter-
brunner Thai. There it stood, holy and high
and pure, the bride of heaven, veiled and clothed
in white, and lifting the thoughts of the beholder
heavenward. 0, he little thought then, as he
gazed at it with longing and delight, how soon a
form was to arise in his own soul, as holy, and
high, and pure as this, and like this point heaven-
ward !

Thus lay the traveller on the mountain summit,
reposing his weary limbs on the short, brown
grass, which more resembled moss than grass.
He had sent his guide forward, that he might be
alone. His soul within him was wild with a fierce
and painful delight. The mountain air excited
him ; the mountain solitudes enticed, yet mad-
dened him. Every peak, every sharp, jagged
iceberg, seemed to pierce him. The silence was
awful and sublime. It was like that in the soul

A ROMANCE. 197

of a dying man, when he hears no more the
sounds of earth. He seemed to be laying aside
his earthly garments. The heavens were near
unto him ; but between him and heaven every evil
deed he had done arose gigantic, like those
mountain-peaks, and breathed an icy breath upon
him. O, let not the soul that suffers dare to
look Nature in the face, where she sits majesti-
cally aloft in the solitude of the mountains ! for
her face is hard and stern, and turns not in com-
passion upon her weak and erring child. It is
the countenance of an accusing archangel, who
summons us to judgment. In the valley she
wears the countenance of a Virgin Mother, look-
ing at us with tearful eyes, and a face of pity
and love !

But yesterday Flemming had come up the val-
ley of the Saint Gothard Pass, through Amsteg,
where the Kerstelenbach comes dashing down
the Maderaner Thai, from its snowy cradle over-
head. The road is steep, and runs on zigzag
terraces. The sides of the mountains are barren
cliffs ; and from their cloud-capped summits,
unheard amid the roar of the great torrent below,
come streams of snow-white foam, leaping from
rock to rock, like the mountain chamois. As

198 HYPERION,

you advance, the scene grows wilder and more
desolate. There is not a tree in sight, — not a
human habitation. Clouds, black as midnight,
lower upon you from the ravines above ; and the
mountain torrent beneath is but a sheet of foam,
and sends up an incessant roar. A sudden turn
in the road brings you in sight of a lofty bridge,
stepping from cliff to chfF with a single stride.
A mighty cataract howls beneath it, hke an evil
spirit, and fills the air with mist ; and the moun
tain wind claps its hands and shrieks through the
narrow pass. Ha ! ha ! This is the Devil's
Bridge. It leads the traveller across the fear
ful chasm, and through a mountain gallery into
the broad, green, silent meadow of Andermath.

Even the sunny morning, which followed this
gloomy day, had not chased the desolate impres
sion from the soul of Flemming. His excite
ment increased as he lost himself more and more
among the mountains ; and now, as he lay alone
on the summit of the sunny hill, with only gla-
ciers and snowy peaks about him, his soul, as 1
have said, was wild with a fierce and painful
delight.

A human voice broke his reverie. He looked,
and beheld, at a short distance from him, the

A ROMANCE. 199

athletic form of a mountain herdsman, who was
approaching the spot where he lay. He was a
young man, clothed in a rustic garb, and holding
a long staff in his hand. When Flemming rose,
he stood still, and gazed at him, as if he loved
the face of man, even of a stranger, and longed
to hear a human voice, though it might speak in
an unknown tongue. He answered Flemming's
salutation in a rude mountab dialect, and in reply
to his questions said : —

" T, with two others, have charge of two hun-
dred head of cattle on these mountains. Through
the two summer months, we remain here night and
day ; for which we receive each a napoleon."

Flemming gave him half his summer wages.
He was glad to do a good deed in secret, and yet
so near heaven. The man received it as his due,
like a toll-keeper ; and soon after departed, leav-
ing the traveller alone. And the traveller went
his way down the mountain, as one distraught.
He stopped only to pluck one bright blue flower,
which bloomed alone in the vast desert, and looked
up at him, as if to say, " O, take me with you 1
leave me not here companionless ! "

Ere long he reached the magnificent glacier of
the Rhone ; a frozen cataract, more than two

200 HYPERION,

thousand feet in height, and many miles broad at
Its base. It fills the whole valley between two
mountains, running back to their summits. At
the base it is arched, like a dome ; and above,
jagged and rough, and resembles a mass of gigan-
tic crystals, of a pale emerald tint, mingled with
white. A snowy crust covers its surface ; but at
every rent and crevice the pale green ice shines
clear in the sun. Its shape is that of a glove,
lying with the palm downwards, and the fingers
crooked and close together. It is a gauntLt of
ice, which, centuries ago. Winter, the king of
these mountains, threw down in defiance to the
Sun ; and year by year the Sun strives in vain
to lift it from the ground on the point of his glit-
tering spear. A feeling of wonder and delight
came over the soul of Flemming when he beheld
it, and he shouted and cried aloud : —
" How wonderful ! how glorious ! "
After lingering a few hours in the cold, deso-
late valley, he climbed in the afternoon the steep
Mayen-Wand, on the Grimsel ; passed the Lake
of the Dead, with its ink-black waters ; and
through the melting snow, and over slippery step-
ping-stones in the beds of numberless shallow
brooks, descended to the Grimsel Hospital, where

A ROMANCE 201

he passed the night, and thought it the most lone
and desolate spot that man ever slept in.

On the morrow, he rose with the day ; and the
rising sun found him already standing on the rus-
tic bridge which hangs over the verge of the
Falls of the Aar at Handeck, where the river
pitches dovra a precipice into a narrow and fear-
ful abyss shut in by perpendicular cliffs. At
right angles with it comes the beautiful Aerlen-
bach ; and half-way down, the double cascade
mingles into one. Thus he pursued his way dovra
the Hash Thai into the Bernese Oberland, —
restless, impatient, he knew not why, — - stopping
seldom, and never long, — and then rushing for-
ward again, like the rushing river whose steps he
followed, and in whose ice-cold waters ever and
anon he bathed his wrists, to cool the fever in
his blood ; for the noonday sun was hot.

His heart dilated in the dilating valley, that
grew broader and greener at every step. The
sight of human faces and human dwellings soothed
him ; and through the fields of summer grain, in
the broad meadows of Imgrund, he walked with
a heart that ached no more, but trembled only, as
our eyelids when we have done weeping. As he
climbed the opposite hill, which hems in this ro-

202 HYPERION,

mantic valley, and, like a heavy yoke, chafes the
neck of the Aar, he believed the ancient tradition,
which says that once the valley was a lake.
From the summit of the hill he looked southward
upon a beautiful landscape of gardens, and fields
of grain, and woodlands, and meadows, and the
ancient castle of Resti, looking down upon Mey-
ringen. And now all around him were the sing-
ing of birds, and grateful shadows of the leafy
trees, and sheeted waterfalls dropping from the
woodland cliffs, seen only, bijt unheard, — the
fluted columns breaking into mist, and fretted with
frequent spires and ornaments of foam, and not
unlike the towers of a Gothic church inverted.
There, in one white sheet of foam, the Riechen-
bach pours down into its deep beaker, into which
the sun never shines. Face to face it beholds
the Alpbach falling from the opposite hill, " like
a downward smoke." When Flemming saw the
innumerable runnels, sliding down the mountain-
side, and leaping, all life and gladness, he would
fain have clasped them in his arms and been their
playmate, and revelled with them in their freedom
and delight. Yet he was weary with the day's
journey, and entered the village of Meyringen,
embowered in cherry-trees, which were tlien laden

A ROMANCE. 203

With fruit, more like a wayworn traveller than an
enthusiastic poet. As he went up the tavern-
steps, he said in his heart, with the Italian Areti
no : " He who has not been at a tavern knows
not what a paradise it is. O holy tavern ! O
miraculous tavern ! — holy, because no carking
cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain ; and
miraculous, because of the spits, which of thera
selves turn round and round ! Of a truth, all
courtesy and good manners come from taverns, so
full of bows, and Signor, si ! and Signor, no ! '"
But even in the tavern he could not rest long.
The same evening at sunset he was floating on
the lake of Brienz, in an open boat, close un-
der the cascade of the Giessbach, hearing the
peasants sing the Ranz des Vaches. He slept
that night at the other extremity of the lake, in a
large house, which, like Saint Peter's at Joppa,
stood by the water's side. The next day he
wasted in writing letters, musing in this green
nest, and paddling about the lake again ; and in
the evening went across the beautiful meadows
to Interlachen, where many things happened to
him, and detamed him long.

204 HYPERION,

CHAPTER III.

INTERLACHEN.

Interlachen ! How peacefully, by the
margin of the swift-rushing Aar, thou liest on
the broad lap of those romantic meadows, all
overshadowed by the wide arms of giant trees !
Only the round towers of thine ancient cloister
rise above their summits ; the round towers them-
selves, but a child's playthings under the great
church-towers of the mountains. Close beside
thee are lakes, which the flowing band of the
river ties together. Before thee opens the mag-
nificent valley of Lauterbrunnen, where the
cloud-hooded Monk and pale Virgin stand like
Saint Francis and his Bride of Snow ; and
around thee are fields, and orchards, and hamlets
green, from which the church-bells answer each
other at evening. The evening sun was setting
when I first beheld thee. The sun of life will

A ROMANCE. 205

set ere I forget thee ! Surely it was a scene
like this, that inspired the soul of the Swiss po-
et, m his Song of the Bell !

" Bell ! thou soundest merrily,
When the bridal party

To the church doth hie !
Bell '. thou soundest solemnly
When, on Sabbath morning,

Fields deserted lie !

" Bell ! thou soundest merrily
Tellest thou at evening,

Bed-time draweth nigh '
Bell ! thou soundest mournfully ;
Tellest thou the bitter
Parting hath gone by !

" Say ! how canst thou mourn '
How canst thou rejoice ?

Art but metal dull I
And yet all our sorrowings,
And all our rejoicings.

Thou dost feel them all !

" God hath wonders many.
Which we cannot fathom.

Placed within thy form !
When the heart is sinking.
Thou alone canst raise it,

Trembling in the storm ! "

Paul Flemming alighted at one of the princi-
pal hotels. The landlord came out to meet him.

206 HYPERION,

He had great eyes and a green coat ; and re-
minded Flemming of the innkeeper mentioned in
the Golden Ass, who had been changed by mag-
ic into a frog, and croaked to his customers from
the lees of a wine-cask. His house, he said,
was full, and so was every house in Interlachen ;
but, if the gentleman would walk in, he would
procure a chamber for him in the neighbour-
hood.

On the sofa sat a gentleman, reading ; a stout
gentleman of perhaps forty-five, round, ruddy,
and with a head, which, being a little bald on the
top, looked not unlike a crow's nest with one
egg in it. A good-humored face turned from the
book as Flemming entered ; and a good-hu-
mored voice exclaimed : —

" Ha ! ha ! Mr. Flemming ! Is it you, op
your apparition } I told you we should meet
again ! though you were for taking an eternaL
farewell of your fellow-traveller."

Saying these words, the stout gentleman rose
and shook Flemming heartily by the hand. And
Flemming returned the shake as heartily, recog-
nizmg in this ruddy personage a former travelling-
companion, Mr. Berkley, whom he had left, a
week or two previous, toiling up the Righi. Mr.

A ROMANCE. 207

Berkley was an Englishman of fortune ; a good-
humored, humane old bachelor ; remarkable alike
for his common sense and his eccentricity. That
is to say, the basis of his character was good,
sound common sense, trodden down and smooth-
ed by education ; but this level groundwork his
strange and whimsical fancy used as a dancing-
floor, whereon to exhibit her eccentric tricks.
His ruling passion was cold-bathing ; and he
usually ate his breakfast sitting in a tub of cold
water, and reading a newspaper. He kissed ev-
ery child he met ; and to every old man said, in
passing, "God bless you !" with such an ex-
pression of voice and countenance, that no one
could doubt his sincerity. He reminded one of
Roger Bontemps, or the Little Man in Gray j
though with a difference.

" The last time I had the pleasure of seeing
you, Mr. Berkley," said Flemming, " was at
Goldau, just as you were going up the Righi.
I hope you were gratified with a fine sunrise on
the mountain-top."

" No, I was not ! " replied Mr. Berkley.
" It is all a humbug ! a confounded humbug !
They made such a noise about their sunrise, that
I determined I would not see it. So I lay snug

208 HYPERION,

in bed ; and only peeped through the window-
curtain. That was enough. Just above the
house, on the top of the hill, stood some fifty
half-dressed, romantic individuals, shivering in
the wet grass; and, a short distance from them,
a miserable wretch, blowing a long, wooden horn.
' That 's your sunrise on the Righi, is it ? ' said I ;
and went to sleep again. The best thing I saw
at the Culm was the advertisement on the bed-
room doors, saying, that, if the women would
wear the quilts and blankets for shawls, when
they went out to see the sunrise, they must pay
for the washing. Take my word for it, the Ri-
ghi is a great humbug ! "

" Where have you been since } "

" At Zurich and Schaffhausen. If you go to
Zurich, beware how you stop at the Raven.
They will cheat you. They cheated me ; but I
had my revenge ; for, when we reached Schaff-
hausen, I wrote in the Traveller's Book, —

Beware of the Raven of Zurich !

'T is a bird of omen 111 ;
With a noisy and an unclean nest,

And a very, very long bill.

If you go to the Golden Falken, you will find it
there. I am the author of those lines ! "

A ROMANCE. 209

" Bitter as Juvenal ! " exclaimed Flemming.

" Not in the least bitter," said Mr. Berkley.
" It is, all true. Go to the Raven and see. But
this Interlachen ! this Interlachen ! It is ths
loveliest spot on the face of the earth," he con-
tinued, stretching out both arms, as if to embrace
the object of his affection. "There, — only
look out there ! "

H0re he pointed to the window. Flemming
looked, and beheld a scene of transcendent beau-
ty. The plain was covered already by the
brown shade of the summer tw;ilight. From the
cottage roofs in Unterseen rose here and there a
thin column of smoke over the tops of the trees,
and mingled with the evening shadows. The
valley of Lauterbrunnen was filled with a blue
haze. Far above, in the clear, cloudless heaven,
the while forehead of the Jungfrau blushed at the
last kiss of the departing sun. It was a glorious
Transfiguration of Nature ! And when the vil-
lage bells began to ring, and a single voice at a
great distance was heard yodling forth a ballad, it
rather broke than increased the enchantment of a
scene, where silence was more musical than
sound.

For a long time they gazed at the gloaming
14

210 HYPERION,

landscape, and spake not. At length people
came in, and laid aside their shawls and hats, and
exchanged a word or two with Berkley. To
Flemming they were all unknown. The con-
versation turned upon the various excursions of
the day. Some had heen at the Staubbach,
others at the Grindelwald, others at the Lake of
Thun ; and nobody before had ever experienced
half the rapture Which they had experienced that
day. And thus they sat in the twilight, as peo-
ple love to do, at tlie close of a summer day.
As yet the lamps had not been lighted, and one
could not distinguish faces ; but voices only, and
forms, like shadows.

Presently a female figure, clothed in black, en
tered the room and sat down by the window.
She rather listened to . the conversation, than
joined in it ; but the few words she said were
spoken in a voice so musical and full of soul, that
it moved the soul of Flemming, like a whisper
from heaven.

O, how wonderful is the human voice ! It is
indeed the organ of the soul ! The intellect of
man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and
in his eye ; and the heart of man is written upon
his countenance. But the soul reveals itself in

\ ROMANCE. 211

the voice only ; as God revealed himself to the
prophet of old in the still, small voice, and in a
voice from the hurning bush. The soul of man
is audible, not visible. A sound alone betrays
the flowing of the eternal fountain, invisible to
man !

Flemming would fain have sat and listened foi
hours to the sound of that unknown voice. He
felt sure, in his secret heart, that the being from
whom it came was beautiful. His imagination
filled up the faint outline which the eye beheld
in the fading twilight, and the figure stood already
in his mind hke Raphael's beautiful Madonna in
the Dresden gallery. He was never more mis-
taken in his hfe. The voice belonged to a beau-
tiful being, it is true ; but her beauty was difier-
ent from that of any Madonna which Raphael
ever painted ; as he would have seen, had he
waited till the lamps were lighted. But in the
midst of his reverie and saint-painting, the land
lord came in, and told him he had found a cham
her, which he begged him to go and look at.

Flemming took his leave and departed. Berk-
ley went with him, to see, he said, what kind of
a nest his young friend was to sleep in.

" The chamber is not what I could wish,"

212 HYPERION,

said the landlord, as he led them across the street
" It is in the old cloister. But to-morrow or
next day, you can, no doubt, have a room at the
house."

The name of the cloister struck Flemming's
imagination pleasantly. He was owl enough to
like ruins and old chambers, where nuns or friars
had slept. And he said to Berkley : —

" So, you perceive, my nest is to be in a
cloister. It already makes me think of a bird's
nest I once saw on an old tower of Heidelberg
Castle, built in the jaws of a lion, which formerly
served as a spout. But pray tell me, who was
that young lady, with the soft voice ? "

" What young lady with the soft voice .'"

" The young lady in black, who sat by the
window."

" O, she is the daughter of an English officer,
who died not long ago at Naples. She is passing
the summer here with her mother."

" What is her name .' "

" Ashburton."

" Is she beautiful ? "

" Not beautiful ; but very intellectual. A
woman of genius, I should say."

And now they had reached the walls of the

A ROMANCE. 213

cloister, and passed under an arched gateway,
and close beneath the round towers, which Flem-
ming had aheady seen, rising with their cone-
shaped roofs above the trees, like tall tapers,
with extinguishers upon them.

"It is not so bad as it looks," said the land-
lord, knocking at a small door, in the main build-
ing. " The bailiff lives in one part of it."

A servant girl, with a candle in her hand, open
ed the door, and conducted Flemming and Berk-
ley to the chamber which had been engaged. It
was a large room on the lower floor, wainscoted
with pine, and unpainted. Three lofty and nar-
row windows, with leaden lattices and small
panes, looked southward towards the valley of
Lauterbrunnen and the mountains. In one cor-
ner was a large square bed, with a tester and
checked curtains. In another, a huge stove of
painted tiles, reaching almost to the. ceiling. An
old sofa, a few high-backed, antique chairs,- and a
table, completed the furniture of the room.

Thus Flemming took possession of his monk-
ish cell and dormitory. He ordered tea, and be-
gan to feel at home. Berkley passed the even-
mg with him. On going away, he said : —

" Good night I I leave you to the care of the

214 HYPERION,

Virgin and all the Saints. If the ghost of any
old monk comes back after his prayer-book, my
compliments to him. If I were a younger man,
you certainly should see a ghost. Good night ! "
When he had departed, Flemming opened the
lattice of one of the windows. The moon had
risen, and silvered the dark outline of the near
est hills ; while, afar off, the snowy summits of
the Jungfrau and the Silver-Horn shone like a
white cloud in the sky. Close beneath the win-
dows was a flower-garden ; and the breath of the
summer night came to him with dewy fragrance.
There was a grateful seclusion about the place.
He blessed the happy accident which gave him
such a lodging, and fell asleep that night thinking
of the nuns who once had slept in the same quiet
cells ; but neither wimpled nun nor cowled monk
appeared to him in his dreams ; — not even the
face of Mary Ashburton ; nor did he hear her
voice.

A ROMANCE. 215

CHAPTER IV.

THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAR.

Old Froissart tells us, in his Chronicles, that,
when King Edward beheld the Countess of Sal-
isbury at her castle-gate, he thought he had nev-
er seen before so noble nor so fair a lady ; he
was stricken thereupon to the heart with a spar-
kle of fine love, that endured long after ; he
thought no lady in the world so worthy to be be-
loved as she. And so likewise thought Paul
Flemming, when he beheld the English lady in
the fair light of a slimmer morning. I will not
disguise the truth. She is my heroine ; and I
mean to describe her with great truth and beauty,
so that all shall be in love with her, and I most
of all.

Mary Ashburton was in her twentieth summer.
Like the fair maiden Amoret, she was sitting in
the lap of womanhood. They did her wrong,
who said she was not beautiful ; and yet

210 HYPERION,

" She was not fair,
Nor beautiful ; — those words express her not.
But, O, her looks had something excellent,
That wants a name ! "

Her face had a wonderful fascination in it. It
was such a calm, quiet face, with the light of the
rising soul shining so peacefully through it. At
times it wore an expression of seriousness, — of
sorrow even ; and then seemed to make the very-
air bright with what the Itahan poets so beautiful-
ly call the lampeggiar delV angelica riso, — the
lightning of the angelic smile.

And, O, those eyes, — those deep unutterable
eyes, with " down-falling eyelids, full of dreams
and slumber," and within them a cold, living
light, as in mountain lakes at evening, or in the
^ iver of Paradise, for ever gliding,

" With a brown, brown current.
Under the shade perpetual, that never
Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon."

I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star.
Those only are beautiful, which, like the planets,
have a steady, lambent light, — are luminous^
but not sparkling. Such eyes the Greek poets
give to the Immortals.

The lady's figure was striking. Every step.

A ROMANCE, 217

every attitude was graceful, and yet lofty, as if
inspired by the soul within. Angels in the old
poetic philosophy have such forms ; it was the
soul itself imprinted on the air. And what a soul
was hers ! A temple dedicated- to Heaven, and,
like the Pantheon at Rome, lighted only from
above. And earthly passions in the form of gods
were no longer there, but the sweet and thought-
ful faces of Christ, and the Virgin Mary, and
the SaintSi Thus there was not one discordant
thing in her ; but a perfect harmony of figurej
and face, and soul, — in a word, of the whole be-
ing. And he who had a soul to comprehend
hers must of necessity love her, and, having
once loved her, could love no other woman for
evermore.

No wonder, then, that Flemming felt his heart
drawn towards her, as, in her morning walk, she
passed him, sitting alone under the great walnut-
trees near the cloister, and thinking of heaven,
but not of her. She, too, was alone. Her
cheek was no longer pale ; but glowing and
bright, with the inspiration of the summer air.
Flemming gazed after her, till she disappeared,
even as a vision of his dreams, he knew not
whither. He was not yet in love, hut very near

218 HYPERION,

it ; for he thanked God that he had made such
beautiful beings to walk the earth.

Last night he had heard a voice to which his
soul responded ; and he might have gone on his
way, and taken no farther heed. But he would
have heard that voice afterwards, whenever at
evenmg he thought of this evening at Interlachen.
To-day he had seen more clearly the vision, and
his restless soul grew calm. The place seemed
pleasant to him ; and he could not go. He did
not ask himself whence came this calm. He felt
it, and was happy in the feeling ; and blessed
the landscape and the summer morning, as if they,
possessed the wonder-working power.

" A pleasant morning-dream to you," said a
friendly voice ; and at the same moment some
one laid his hand upon Flemming's shoulder. It
was Berkley. He had approached unseen and
unheard.

" I see by the smile on your countenance," he
continued, " that it is no day-incubus,"

" You are right," replied Flemming. " I
was a pleasant dream, which you have put to
flight."

" And I am glad to see that you have also
put to flight the gloomy thoughts which used to

A ROMANCE. 219

haunt you. I like to see people cheerful and
happy. Why give way to sadness in this beau-
tiful world ? "

" Ah ! this beautiful world ! " said Flemming,
with a smile. " Indeed, I know not what to
think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness anc
sunshine, and heaven itself lies not far off. And
then it changes suddenly, and is dark and sor-
rowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In the lives
of the saddest of us, there are bright days like
this, when we feel as if we could take the great
world in our arms. Then come the gloomy
hours, when the fire will neither burn on our
hearths nor in our hearts ; and all without and
within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me,
every heart has its secret sorrows which the
world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man
cold, when he is only sad."

" And who says we do not ? " interrupted
Berkley. " Come, come ! Let us go to break-
fast. The morning air has given me a rude ap-
petite. I long to say grace over a fresh egg,
and eat salt with my worst enemies ; namely, the
Cockneys at the hotel. After breakfast you
must give yourself up wholly to me. I shall
take you to the Grindelwald ! "

220 HYPERION,

" To-day, then, you do not breakfast like Di
ogenes, but consent to leave your tub."

" Yes, for the pleasure of your company. 1
shall also blow out the light in my lantern, h»v
ing found you."

" Thank you."

The breakfast passed without any unusual oc-
currence. Flemming watched the entrance of
every guest ; but she came not, — the guest he
most desired to see.

" And now for the Grindelwald ! " said Berk-
ley.

" Why such haste ? We have the whole day
before us. There is time enough."

" Not a moment to lose, I assure you. The
carriage is at the door."

They drove up the valley of Lauterbrunnen,
and turned eastward among the mountains of the
Grindelwald. There they passed the day ; half-
frozen by the icy breath of the Great Glacier,
upon whose surface stand pyramids and blocks of
ice, like the tombstones of a cemetery. It was
a weary day to Flemming. He wished himself
at Interlachen ; and was glad, when, towards
evening, he saw once more the cone-roofed tow-
ers of the cloister rising above the walnut-trees.

A ROMANCE. 221.

That evening is written in red letters in his
history. It gave him another revelation of the
beauty and excellence of woman's character and
hitellect ; not wholly new to him, yet now re-
newed and fortified. It was from the lips of Ma-
ry Ashburton that the revelation came. Her
form arose, like a tremulous evening-star, in the
firmament of his soul. He conversed with her,
and with her alone ; and knew not when to go.
AU others were to him as if they were not there.
He saw their forms, but saw them as the forms
of inanimate things. At length her mother came ,
and Flemming beheld in her but another Mary
Ashburton, with beauty more mature; — the
same forehead and eyes, the same majestic fig-
ure ; and, as yet, no trace of age. He gazed
upon her with a feeling of delight, not unmingled
with holy awe. She was to him the rich and
glowing Evening, from whose bosom the tremu-
lous star was born.

Berkley took no active part in the conversa-
tion, but did what was much more to the pur-
pose, — that is to say, arranged a drive for the
next day with the Ashburtons, and of course in-
vited Flemming, who went home that night with a
halo round his head, and wondering much at a

222 HYPERION,

dandy, who stood at the door of the hotel, and
said to his companion, as Flemming passed : —

''What do you call this place ? I have been
here two hours already, and find it devihsh dull I "

A ROMANCE. 2^3

CHAPTER V.

A RAINY DAY.

When Flemming awoke the next morning, he
saw the sky dark and lowering. From the moun-
tain-tops hung a curtain of mist, whose heavy
folds waved to and fro in the valley below.
Over all the landscape the soft summer rain was
falling. No admiring eyes would look up that
day at the Staubbach.

A rainy day in Switzerland puts a sudden stop
to many diversions. The coachman may drive
to the inn, and then back to the stable ; but no
farther. The sunburnt guide may sit at the ale-
house door, and welcome ; and the boatman whis-
tle and curse the clouds, at his own sweet will ; —
but no foot stirs abroad for all that ; no traveller
moves, if he has time to stay. The rainy day
gives him time for reflection. He has leisure
now to take cognizance of his impressions, and

224 HYPERION,

make up his account with the mountains. He
remembers, too, that he has friends at home ;
and writes up the journal, neglected for a week
or more, and letters neglected longer ; or finish-
es the rough pencil-sketch, begun yesterday in
the open air. On the whole, he is not sorry it
rains, — though disappointed.

Flemming was both sorry and disappointed ;
but he did not on that account fail to go over to
the Ashburtons at the appointed hour. He found
them sitting in the parlour. The mother was
reading, and the daughter retouching a sketch
of the Lake of Thun. .After the usual saluta-
tions, Flemming seated himself near the daugh
ter, and said : —

" We shall have no Staubbach to-day, I pre-
sume ; only this Giessbach from the clouds."

" Nothing more, I suppose. So we must be
content to stay in-doors, and listen to the sound
of the eaves-dropping rain. It gives me time to
finish some of these rough sketches."

" It is a pleasant pastime," said Flemming ;
" and I perceive you are very skilful. I am de-
lighted to see that you can draw a straight line.
I never before saw a lady's sketch-book in which
all the towers did not resemble the Leaning Tow-

A.ROMANCE. 225

er of Pisa. I always tremble for the little men
under them."

" How absurd ! " exclaimed Mary Ashburton,
with a smile that passed through the misty air of
Flemming's thoughts like a sunbeam. "For one,
T succeed much better in straight lines than in any
others. Here I have been trying a half-hour to
make this water-wheel round ; and round it nev-
er will be."

" Then let it remain as it is. It looks uncom
monly picturesque, and may pass for a new in-
vention."

The lady continued to sketch, and Flemming
to gaze at her beautiful face ; often repeating to
himself those lines in Marlow's Faust : —

" O, thou art fairer than the erening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars ! "

He certainly would have betrayed himself to
the maternal eye of Mrs. Ashburton, had she not
been wholly absorbed in the jollies of a fashion-
able novel. Ere long, the fair sketcher had paused
for a moment; and Flemming had taken her sketch-
book in his hands and was looking it through from
the beginning with ever-increasing delight, half of
which he dared not express, though he favored her
with some comments and bursts of admiration.
15

226 HYPERION,

" This is truly a very beautiful sketch of
Murten and the battle-field ! How quietly the
landscape sleeps there by the lake, after the bat-
tle ! Did you ever read the ballad of Veit We-
ber, the shoemaker, on this subject ? He says,
the routed Burgundians jumped into the lake,
and the Swiss Leaguers shot them down like wild
ducks among the reeds. He fought in the battle,
and wrote the ballad afterwards ; —

' He had himself laid hand on sword,
He who this rhyme did write ;
Till evening mowed he with the sword,
And sang the song at night.' "

" You must give me the whole ballad," said
Miss Ashburton ; "it will serve to illustrate the
sketch."

" And the sketch to illustrate the ballad.
A.nd now we suddenly slide down the Alps into
[taly, and are even in Rome, if I mistake not.
This is surely a head of Homer ? "

" Yes," replied the lady, with a little enthusi-
asm. " Do you not remember the marble bust
at Rome } When I first beheld that bust, it ab-
solutely inspired me with awe. It is not the face
of a man, but of a god ! "

" And you have done it no injustice in youi

A ROMANCE. 227

copy," said Flemming, catching a new enthusi-
asm from hers. "With what a classic grace the
fillet, passing round the majestic forehead, con-
fines his flowing locks, which mingle with his
heard ! The countenance, too, is calm, majes-
tic, godlike.! Even the fixed and sightless eye-
balls do not mar the image of the seer ! Such
were the sightless eyes of the blind old man of
Chios. They seem to look with mournful solem-
nity into the mysterious future ; and the marble
lips to repeat that prophetic passage in the Hymn
to Apollo : — ' Let me also hope to be remember-
ed in ages to come. And when any one, born of
the tribes of men, comes hither, a weary travel-
ler, and inquires, who is the sweetest of the
singing-men that resort to your feasts, and whom
you most delight to hear, do you make answer
for me : It is the Blind Man who dwells in
Chios ; his songs excel all that can ever be
sung ! ' But do you really believe that this is
a portrait of Homer .' "

" Certainly not ! It is only an artist's dream.
It was thus that Homer appeared to him in his
visions of the antique world. Every one, you
know, forms an image in his fancy of persons
and things he has never seen ; and the artist re-
produces them in marble or on canvass."

228 HYPERION,

" And what is the image in your fancy ? Is it
like this ? "

" No ; not entirely. T have drawn my impres-
sions from another source. Whenever I think of
Homer, which is not often, he walks before me,
solemn and serene, as in the vision of the great
Italian ; in countenance neither sorrowful nor
glad, followed by other bards, and holding in his
right hand a sword ! "

" That is a finer conception than this,"
said Flemming. " And I perceive from your
words, as well as from this book, that you have a
true feeling for Art, and understand what it is.
You have had bright glimpses into the enchanted
land."

" I trust," replied the lady, modestly, " that I
am not wholly without this feeling. Certainly I
have as strong and passionate a love of Art as of
Nature."

" But does it not often offend you to hear peo-
ple speaking of Art and Nature as opposite and
discordant things .' Surely nothing can be more
false. Nature is a revelation of God ; Art a rev-
elation of man. Indeed, Art signifies no more
than this. Art is Power. That is the original
meaning of the word. It is the creative power

A ROMANCE. 229

by which the soul of man makes itself known,
through some external manifestation or outward
sign. As we can always hear the voice of'God,
walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, or
under the star-light, where, to quote one of this
poet's verses, ' high prospects and the brows of
all steep hills and pinnacles thrust up themselves
for shows, ' — so under the twilight and the star-
light of past ages, do we hear the voice of man,
walking amid the works of his hands, and city
walls and towers, and the spires of churches,
thrust up themselves for shows."

The lady smiled at his warmth ; and he con-
tinued : —

" This, however, is but a similitude ; and Art
and Nature are more nearly allied than by simili-
tudes only. Art is the revelation of man ; and
not merely that, but likewise the revelation of Na-
ture, speaking through man. Art preexists in
Nature, and Nature is reproduced in Art. As
vapors from the ocean, floating landward and dis-
solved in rain, are carried back in rivers to the
ocean, so thoughts and the semblances of things
that fall upon the soul of man in showers flow ouL
again in living streams of Art, and lose them-
selves in. the great ocean, which is Nature. Art

230 HYPERION,

and Nature are not, then, discordant, but ever
harmoniously working in each other."

Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. Flemming
spake with such evident interest in the subject,
that Miss Ashburton did not fail to manifest some
interest in what he said ; and encoui'aged by this,
be proceeded : —

" Thus in this wondrous world wherein we
live, which is the World of Nature, man has
made unto himself another world hardly less won-
drous, which is the World of Art. And it lies
aifolded and compassed about by the other,

'And the clear region where 't was born
Round in itself incloses.'

Taking this view of Art, I think we understand
more easily the skill of the artist, and the differ-
ence between him and the mere amateur. W^hat
we call miracles and wonders of Art are not so to
him who created them ; for they were created
by the natural movements of his own great soul.
Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but
shadows of himself ; — shadows in marble, col-
ors, stone, words. He feels and recognizes their
beauty ; but he thought these thoughts and pro-
duced these things as easily as inferior minds do
thoughts and things inferior ; perhaps more easi-

A ROMANCE. 23]

ly. Vague images and shapes of beauty floating
through the soul, the semblances of things as yet
indefinite or ill-defined, and perfect only when
put in Art, — this Possible Intellect, as the Scho-
lastic Philosophers have termed it, — the artist
shares in common with us all. The lovers of
Art are many. But the Active Intellect, the cre-
ative power, — the power to put these shapes
and images m Art, to imbody the indefinite, and
render perfect, — is his alone. He shares the gift
with few. He knows not even whence nor how
this is. He knows only that it is ; that God has
given him the power, which has been denied to
others."

" I should have known you were just from
Germany," said the lady, with a smile, " even if
you had not told me so. You are an enthusiast
for the Germans. For my part, I cannot endure
their harsh language."

" You would like it better, if you knew it bet-
ter," answered Flemming. " It is not harsh to
me ; but homelike, hearty, and full of feeling, —
like the sound of happy voices at a fireside, of a
winter's night, when the wind blows, and the fire
crackles, and hisses, and snaps. I do indeed
love the Germans ; the men are so hale and hear-
ty, and the Frauleins so tender and true ! "

232 HYPERION,

" I always think of men with pipes and beer,
and women with knitting-work."

" O, those are English prejudices ! " exclaimed
Flemmbg. " Nothing can be more "

" And their very literature presents itself to
my imagination under the same forms."

" I see you have read only English criticisms ,
and have an idea, tliat all German books smell,
as one of your English critics says, ' of grocer-
ies, of brown papers filled with greasy cakes and
slices of bacon, and of fryings in frouzy back-
parlours ' ; and this shuts you out from a glorious
world of poetry, romance, and dreams ! "

Mary Ashburton smiled, and Flemming con
tinued to turn over the leaves of the sketch-book,
with an occasional criticism and witticism. At
length he came to a leaf which was written in
pencil. People of a hvely imagination are gen-
erally curious, and always so when a little in
love.

" Here is a pencil-sketch," said he, with an
entreating look, " which I would fain examine
with the rest."

" You may do so, if you wish ; but you will
find it the poorest sketch in the book. I was
trying one day to draw the picture of an artist's

A ROMANCE. 233

life in Rome, as it presented itself to my imagi-
nation ; and this is the result. Perhaps it may
awaken some pleasant recollection in your mind."

Flamming waited no longer ; but read with the
eyes of a lover, not of a critic, the following de
scription, which inspired him with a new enthusi-
asm for Art, and for Mary Ashburton.

" I often reflect with delight upon the young
artist's life in Rome. A stranger from the cold
and gloomy North, he has crossed the Alps, and
with the devotion of a pilgrim journeyed to the
Eternal City. He dwells, perhaps, upon the Pin-
cian Hill ; and hardly a house there, which is
not inhabited by artists from foreign lands. The
very room he lives in has been their abode
time out of mind. Their names are written all
over the walls ; perhaps some further record of
them is left in a rough sketch upon the window-
shutter, with an inscription and a date. These
things consecrate the place, in his imagination.
Even these names, though unknown to him, are
not without associations in his mind.

" In that warm latitude he rises with the day.
The night-vapors are already rolling away over
the Campagna seaward. As he looks from his
window, above and beyond their white folds he

234 HYPERION,

recognizes the tremulous blue sea at Ostia. Over
Soracte rises the sun, — over his own beloved
mountain ; though no longer vporshipped there, as
of old. Before him, the antique house of Claude
Lorraine casts its long brown shadow down into
the heart of modem Rome. The city hes
still asleep and silent. But above its dark roofs,
more than two hundred steeples catch the sunshine
on their gilded weathercocks. Presently the
bells begin to ring, and, as the artist listens to
their pleasant chimes, he knows that in each of
those churches, over the high altar, hangs a paint-
ing by some great master's hand, whose beauty
comes between him and heaven, so that he can-
not pray, but wonder only.

" Among these works of art he passes the day ;
but oftenest in gt. Peter's and the Vatican. Up
the vast marble staircase, — through the Corri-
dor Chiaramonli, — through vestibules, galleries,
chambers, — he passes, as in a dream. All are
filled with busts and statues, or painted in daring
frescoes. What forms of strength and beauty !
what glorious creations of the human mind ! and
in that last chamber of all, standing alone upon
his pedestal, the Apollo found at Actium, — in
such a majestic attitude, ■ — with such a noble
countenance, life-like, god-like !

A ROMANCE. 235

" Or perhaps he passes into the chambers of
the painters ; but goes no further than the second.
For in the middle of that chamber a large paint-
ing stands upon the heavy easel, as if unfinished .
though more than three hundred years ago the
great artist completed it, and then laid his pencil
away for ever, leaving this last benediction to the
world. It is the Transfiguration of Christ, by Ra-
phael. A child looks not at the stars with great-
er wonder than the artist at this painting. He
knows how many studious years are in that pic-
ture. He knows the difficult path that leads to
perfection, having himself taken some of the first
steps. Thus he recalls the hour, when that
broad canvass was first stretched upon its frame,
and Raphael stood before it, and laid the first col
ors upon it, and beheld the figures one by one born
into life, and ' looked upon the work of his own
hands with a smile, that it should have succeeded
so well.' He recalls, too, the hour, when, the
task accomplished, the pencil dropped from the
master's dying hand, and his eyes closed to open
on a more glorious transfiguration, and at length
the dead Raphael lay in his own studio, before
this wonderful painting, more glorious than any
conqueror under the banners and armorial hatch-
ments of his funeral !

'236 HYPERION,

" Think you that such sights and thoughts as
these do not move the heart of a young man and
an artist ? And when he goes forth into the open
air, the sun is going down, and the gray ruins of
an antique world receive him. From the Palace
of the Caesars he looks down into the Forum, or
towards the Coliseum ; or westward sees the last
sunshine strike the bronze Archangel which
stands upon the Tomb of Adrian. He walks
amid a world of Art in ruins. The very street-
lamps, that light him homeward, burn before
some painted or sculptured image of the Madon-
na ! What wonder is it, if dreams visit him in
his sleep, — nay, if his whole life seem to him a
dream } What wonder, if, with a feverish heart
and quick hand, he strive to reproduce those
dreams in marble or on canvass .'' "

Foolish Paul Flamming ! who both admired
and praised this little sketch, and yet was too
blind to see that it was written from the heart,
and not from the imagination ! Foolish Paul
Flamming ! who thought that a girl of twenty could
write thus without a reason ! Close upon this
followed another pencil sketch, which he likevcise
read, with her permission. It was this.

" The whole period of the Middle Ages seems

A KOMANCE. 237

very strange to me. At times I cannot persuade
myself that such things could have been as his
tory tells us ; that such a strange world was a
part of our world, — that such a strange life was
a part of the life which seems to us, who are
living it now, so passionless and commonplace.
It is only when I stand amid ruined castles, that
look at me so mournfully, and behold the heavy
armor of old knights, hanging upon the wainscot
of Gothic chambers ; or when I walk amid the
aisles of some dusky minster, whose walls are
narrative of hoar antiquity, and whose very bells
have been baptized, and see the carved oaken
stalls in the choir, where so many generations of
monks have sat and sung, and the tombs, where
now they sleep in silence, to awake no more to
their midnight psalms ; — it is only at such times
that the history of the Middle Ages is a reality
to me, and not a passage in romance.

" Likewise the illuminated manuscripts of those
ages have something of this power of making the
dead Past a living Present in my mind. What
curious figures are emblazoned on the creaking
parchment, making its yellow leaves laugh with
gay colors ! You seem to come upon them un-
awares. Their faces have an expression of won-

238 HYPERION,

der. They seem all to be just startled from then
sleep by the sound you made when you unloosed
the brazen clasps, and opened the curiously carved
oaken covers, that turn on hinges, like the great
gates of a city. To the building of that city some
diligent monk gave the whole of a long life.
With what strange denizens he peopled it ! Ad-
am and Eve standing under a tree, with apples
in their hands ; — the patriarch Abraham, with
a tree growing out of his body, and his descend-
ants sitting like owls upon its branches ; — la-
dies with flowing locks of gold ; knights in ar-
mor, with most fantastic, long-toed shoes ; jousts
and tournaments ; and Minnesingers, and lovers
whose heads reach to the towers where their la-
dies sit ; — and all so angular, so naive, so
childlike, — all in such simple attitudes, with such
great eyes, and holding up such long, lank fin-
gers ! — These things are characteristic of the
Middle Ages, and persuade me of the truth of
history."

At this moment Berkley entered, with a Swiss
cottage, which he had bought as a present for
somebody's child in England ; and a cane with a
chamois-horn on the end of it, which he had
bought as a present for himself. This was the

A ROMANCE. 239

first time that Flemming had been sorry to see the
good-natured man, whose presence now interrupt
ed the delightful conversation he was carrying on
" under four eyes "with Mary Ashburton. He
really thought him tedious, and wondered it had
never occurred to him before. Mrs. Ashburton,
too, must needs lay down her book ; and the con-
versation became general. Strange to say, the
Swiss dinner-hour, of one o'clock, did not come a
moment too soon for Flemming. It did not even
occur to him that it was early ; for he was seated
.beside Mary Ashburton ; and at dinner one cap
say so much, without being overheard.

240 HYPERION,

CHAPTER VI.

a.FTER DINNER, AND AFTER THE MANNER OF
THE BEST CRITICS.

When the learned Thomas Diafoirus wooed
the fair Angelique, he drew from his pocket a
medical thesis, and presented it to her, as the
first-fruits of his genius ; and, at the same time,
invited her, with her father's permission, to attend
the dissection of a woman, upon whom he was to
lecture. Paul Flemming did nearly the same
thing ; and so often, that it had become a habit.
He was continually drawing from his pocket or
his memory some scrap of song or story ; and
inviting some fair Angelique, either with her fa
ther's permission or without, to attend the dissec-
tion of an author upon whom he was to lecture.
He soon gave proofs of this to Mary Ashburton.

" What books have we here for afternoon
reading ? " said Flemming, taking a volume from

A ROMANCE. 24)

the table, when they had returned from the din-
ing-room. " O, it is Uhland's Poems. Have
you read any thing of his .' He and Tieck are
generally considered the best living poets of Ger-
many. They dispute the palm of superiority.
Let nie give vou a lesson in German, this after
noon. Miss Ashburton ; so that no one may ac-
cuse you of ' omitting the sweet benefit of time,
to clothe your age with angel-like perfection.' T
have opened at random upon the ballad of the
Black Knight. Do you repeat the German after
me, and I will translate to you. Pfmgsten war,
das Fest der Freude ! "

" I should never persuade my unwilling lips to
pronounce such sounds. So I beg you not to
perplex me with your German, but read me the
ballad in English."

" Well, then, listen. I will improvise a trans-
lation for your own particular benefit.

" 'T was Pentecost, the Feast of Gladness,
When woods and fields put off all sadness.
Thus began the king, and spake :
' So from the halls
Of ancient Hofburg's walls
A luxuriant spring shall break.'

" Drums and trumpets echo loudly,
Wave the crimson banners proudly.

16

242 HYPERION,

From balcony the king looked on •

In the play of spears,

Fell all the cavaliers

Before the monarch's stalwart sou.

" To the barrier of "the fight
Rode at last a sable knight. .
' Sir Knight ! your name and Bcutcheonf say
' Should I speak it here,
Ye would stand aghast with fear ;
I 'm a prince of mighty sway ' '

" When he rode into the lists.
The arch of heaven grew black with mists,
And the castle 'gan to rock.
«At the first blow,
Fell the youth from saddle-bow, —
Hardly rises from the shock.

" Pipe and viol call the dances,
Torchlignt through the high halls glances,
Waves a mighty shadow in ;
With manner bland
Doth ask the maiden's hand.
Doth with her the dance begin :

" Danced in sable iron sark.
Danced a measure weird and dark,
Coldly clasped her limbs around.
From breast and hair
Down fall from her the fair
Flowerets, faded, to the ground

" To the sumptuous banquet came
Every knight and every dame

A ROMANCE. 243

'Twixt son and daughter all distraught.
With mournful mind
Tlie ancient king reclined,
Gazed at them in silent thought.

" Pale the children both did look,
But tlie guest a beaker took :
' Golden wine will make you whole ! '
The children drank.
Gave many a courteous thank :
' O, that draught was very cool ! '

" Each the father's breast embraces.
Son and daughter ; and their faces
Colorless grow utterly.
Whichever way

Looks the fear-struck father gray,
He beholds his children die.

" ' Woe ! the blessed children both
Takest thou in the joy of youth :
Take me, too, the joyless father ! '
Spake the grim guest,
From his hollow, cavernous breast :
' Roses in the spring I gather ! ' "

" That is indeed a striking ballad ! " said Miss
Ashburton, " but rather too grim and ghostly for
this dull afternoon."

" It begins joyously enough with the feast of
Pentecost, and the crimson banners at the old
castle. Then the contrast is well managed. The

244 HYPERION,

knight in black mail, and the waving in of the
mighty shadow in the dance, and the dropping of
the faded flowers, are all' strikingly presented to
the imagination. However, it tells its own story,
and needs no explanation. Here is something
in a different vein, though still melancholy. The
Casde by the Sea. Shall I read it .' "

" Yes, if you like."

Flemming read : —

" ' Hast tliou seen that lordly castle,
Tliat castle by the sea ?
Golden and red above it
Tlie clouds float gorgeously.

" ' And fain it would stoop downward
To the mirrored wave below ;
And fain it would soar upward
In the evening's crimson glow.'

" ' Well have I seen that castle,
That castle by the sea,
And the moon above it standing,
And the mist rise solenmly.'

" ' The winds and the waves of ocean,
Had they a merry chime?
Didst thou hear, from those lofty chamberij
The harp and the minstrel's rhyme ? '

" ' The winds and the waves of ocean,
They rested quietly ;

A ROMANCE.

But I heard on the gale a sound of wail,
And tears came to mine eye.'

' ' And sflwest thou on the turrets
The Iting and his royal bride,
And the wave of their crimson mantles,
And the golden crown of pride ?

" ' Led they not forth, in rapture,
A beauteous maiden there,
Resplendent as the morning sun.
Beaming with golden hair? '

" ' Well saw I the ancient parents.
Without the crown of pride ;
They were moving slow, in weeds of woe ,
No maiden was by their side ! '

" How do you like that ? "

" It is very graceful, and pretty. But Uhland
seems to leave a great deal lo his reader's imagi-
nation. All his readers should be poets them
selves, or they will hardly comprehend him. I
confess, I hardly understand the passage where
he speaks of the castle's stooping downward to
the mirrored wave below, and then soaring up-
ward into the gleaming sky. I suppose, however,
he wishes to express the momentary illusion we
experience when beholding a perfect reflection of
an old tower in the sea. We look at it as if it

246 HYPERION,

were not a mere shadow in the water ; and yei
the real tower rises far above, and seems to float
in the crimson evening clouds. Is that the mean-
ing ? "

" I should think it was. To me it is all a
beautiful cloud landscape, which I comprehend
and feel, and yet should find some difficulty per-
haps in explaining."

" And why need one always explain ? • Some
feelings are quite untranslatable. No language
has yet been found for them. They gleam upon
us beautifully through the dim twilight of fancy,
and yet, when we bring them close to us, and
hold them up to the light of reason, lose their
beauty, all at once ; as glowworms, which gleam
with such a spiritual light in the shadows of
evening, when brought in where the candles are
lighted, are found to be only worms, like so
many others."

" Very true. We ought sometimes to be con-
tent with feeling. Here, now, is an exquisite
piece, which soothes one like the fall of evening
shadows, — like the dewy coolness of twilight af-
ter a sultry day. I shall not give you a bald
translation of my own, because 1 have laid up in
my memory another, which, though not very lit-

A ROMANCE. 247

eral, equals the original in beauty. Observe how
.finely it commences.

" Many a year is in its grave,
Since I crossed this restless wave ;
And the evening, fair as ever.
Shines on ruin, rock, and river.

" Then, in this same boat, beside.
Sat two comrades old and tried j
One with all a father's truth.
One with all the fire of youth.

" One on earth in silence wrought.
And his grave in silence sought ;
But the younger, brighter form
Passed in battle and in storm.

" So, whene'er I turn my eye
Back upon the days gone by.
Saddening thoughts of friends come o'er me,
Friends, who closed their course before me.

"Yet what binds us, friend to friend.
But that soul with soul can blend .'
Soul-like were those hours of yore ;
Let us walk in soul once more !

" Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee ;
Take, — I give it willingly;
For, invisible to thee.
Spirits twain have crossed with me ! "

" O, that is beautiful, — ' beautiful exceeding-
ly ! ' Who translated it ? "

248 HYPERION,

" 1 do not know. I wish I could find him out
It is certainly admirably done ; though in the
measure of the original there is something like
the rocking motion of a boat, which is not pre-
served in the translation."

" And is Uhland always so soothing and spir
itual .? "

" Yes, he generally looks into tlie spirit-world.
I am now trying to find here a little poem on the
Death of a Country Clergyman, in which he in-
troduces a striking picture. But I cannot turn to
it. No matter. He describes the spirit of the
good old man, returning to earth on a bright sum-
mer morning, and standing amid the golden corn
and the red and blue flowers, and mildly greeting
the reapers as of old. But there is nothing mor
bid in Uhland's mind. He is always fresh and
invigorating, like a breezy morning. In this he
differs entirely from such writers as Salis and
Matthisson."

" And who are they } "

" Two melancholy gentlemen to whom life was
only a Dismal Swamp, upon whose margin they
walked with cambric handkerchiefs in their hands,
sobbing and sighing, and making signals to Death
to come and ferry them over the lake. And now

A ROMANCE. 249

their spirits stand in the green fields of German
song like two weeping- willows bending over a
grave. To read their poems is like wandering
through a village church-yard on a summer even-
ing, reading the inscriptions upon the grave-stones,
and recalling sweet images of the departed ;
while above you,

' Hark ! in the holy grove of palms,
Where the stream of life runs free,
Eciioes, in the angels' psalms,
" Sister spirit ! hail to thee ! " "

" How musically those lines flow ! Are they
Matthisson's .' "

" Yes ; and they do indeed flow musically. 1
wish I had his poems here. I should like to read
to you his Elegy on the Ruins of an Ancient
Castle. It is an imitation of Gray's Elegy. You
have been at Baden-Baden ?

" Yes ; last summer."

" And have not forgotten "

" The old castle .'' Of course not. What a
magnificent ruin it is ! "

" That is the scene of Matthisson's poem, and
seems to have filled the melancholy bard with
more than wonted inspiration."

" I should like very much to see the poem, —
I remember that old ruin with so much delight."

250 HYPERION,

" I am sorry I have not a translation of it for
you. Instead of it, I will give you a sweet and
mournful poem from Sails. It is called The Song
of the Silent Land.

" Into the Silent Land !
Ah ! who shall lead us thither ?
Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gathei.
And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand.
Who leads us with a gentle hand
Thither, O, thither,
Into the Silent Land ?

" Into the Silent Land !
To you, ye boundless regions
Of all perfection ! Tender morning-visions
Of beauteous souls ! The Future's pledge and band !
Who in Life's battle firm doth stand
Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms
Into the Silent Land !

" O Land ! O Land '
For all the broken-hearted
The mildest herald by our fate allotted
Beckons, and with inverted torch \loth stand
To lead us with a gentle hand
Into the land of the great departed.
Into the Silent Land !

Is not that a beautiful poem ? "

Mary Ashburton made no answer. She had
turned away to hide her tears. Flemming won-

A ROMANCE. 251

dered that Berkley could say she was not beauti-
ful. Still he was rather pleased than offended at
it. He felt at that moment how sweet a thing it
would be to possess one who should seem beau-
tiful to him alone, and yet to him be more beau-
tiful than all the world beside ! How bright the
world became to him at that thought ! It was
like one of those paintings in which all the light
streams from the face of the Virgin. O, there is
nothing holier, in this life of ours, than the first
consciousness of love, — the first fluttering of its
silken wings ; the first rising sound and breath of
that wind which is so soon to sweep through the
soul, to purify or to destroy !

Old histories tell us that the great Emperor
Charlemagne stamped his edicts with the hilt of
his sword. The greater emperor, Death, stamps
his with the blade ; and they are signed and ex-
ecuted with the same stroke. Flemming received
that night a letter from Heidelberg, which told
him that Emma of Ilmenau was dead. The
fate of this poor girl affected him deeply ; and he
said in his heart : —

" Father in heaven ! Why was the lot of
this weak and erring child so hard .'' What had
she done, to be so tempted in her weakness, and

252 HYPERION,

perish ? Why didst thou suffer her gentle affec
tions to lead her thus astray ? "

And, through the silence of the awful midnight,
the voice of an avalanche answered from the dis-
tant mountains, and seemed to say : —

" Peace ! peace ! Why dost thou question
God's providence ? "

A R0MAI7CE. 253

CHAPTER VII.

TAKE CARE

Fair is the valley of Lauterbrunnen, with its
green meadows and overhanging cliffs. The ru-
ined castle of Unspunnen stands like an armed
warder at the gate of the enchanted land. In
calm serenity the snowy mountains rise beyond.
Fairer than the Rock of Balmarusa, yon frowning
precipice looks down upon us ; and, from the
topmost cliff, the white pennon of the Brook of
Dust shimmers and waves in the sunny air !

It was a bright, beautiful morning after night-
rain. Every dew-drop and rain-drop had a whole
heaven within it ; and so had the heart of Paul
Flemming, as, with Mrs. Ashburton and her
dark-eyed daughter, he drove up the Valley of
Lauterbrunnen, — the Valley of Fountains-Only.

" How beautiful the Jungfrau looks this morn-
ing ! " exclaimed he, looking at Mary Ashburton.

254 HYPERION,

She thought he meant the mountain, and assent-
ed. But he meant her hkewise.

" And the mountains beyond," he continued ,
" the Monk and the Silver-horn, the Wetter-horn,
the Schreck-horn, and the Schwarz-horn, — all
those sublime apostles of Nature, whose sermons
are avalanches ! Did you ever behold any thing
more grand ? "

" O, yes ! Mont Blanc is more grand, when
you behold it from the hills opposite. It was
there that I was most moved by the magnificence
of Swiss scenery. It was a morning like this ;
and the clouds, that were hovering about on their
huge, shadoviy wings, made the scene only the
more magnificent. Before me lay the whole pan-
orama o'f the Alps ; pine forests standing dark
and solemn at the base of the mountains ; and
half-way up a veil of mist ; above which rose the
snowy summits and sharp needles of rock, which
seemed to float b the air, like a fairy world.
Then the glaciers stood on either side, winding
down through the mountain ravines ; and, high
above all, rose the white, dome-hke summit of
Mont Blanc. And ever and anon from the
shroud of mist came the awful sound of an ava-
lanche, and a continual roar, as of the wind

A EOMANCE. 255

through a forest of pines, filled the air. It was
the roar of the Arve and Aveiron, hreaking fropi
their icy fountains. Then the mists began to
pass away ; and it seemed as if the whole firma-
ment were rolling together. It recalled to my
mind that sublime passage in the Apocalypse : —
' I saw a great white throne ; and him that sat
thereon ; before whose face the heavens and the
earth fled away, and found no place ! ' I can-
not believe that upon this earth there is a more
magnificent scene ! "

" It mui.t be grand, indeed," replied Flem-
ming. " And those mighty glaciers, — huge
monsters with bristling crests, creeping down into
the valley ! for it is said they really move."

" Yes ; it filled me with a strange sensation of
awe to think of this. They seemed to me like
the dragons of Northern Romance, which come
down from the mountains and devour whole vil-
lages. A little hamlet in Chamouni was once
abandoned by its inhabitants, terrified at the ap-
proach of the icy dragon. But is it possible you
have never been at Chamouni .' "

"Never. The great marvel still remains un-
seen by me."

" Then how can you linger here so long ?
Were I in your place, I would not lose an hour. "

256 HYPERION,

These words passed over the opening blossoms
of hope in the soul of Flemming like a cold wind
over the flowers in spring-time. He bore it as
best he could, and changed the subject.

I do not mean to describe the Valley of Lau-
terbrunnen, nor the bright day passed there. I
know that my gentle reader is blessed with the
divine gift of a poetic fancy ; and can see already
how the mountains rise, and the torrents fall, and
the beautiful valley lies between ; and how, along
the dusty road, the herdsman blows his horn, and
travellers come and go in charabans, like Punch
and Judy in a show-box. He knows already how
romantic ladies sketch romantic scenes ; and how
cold meat tastes under the shadow of trees ; and
how time flies, when we are in love, and the be-
loved one near. One little incident I must, how-
ever, mention, lest his fancy should not suggest it.

Flemming was still sitting with the ladies on
the green slope near the Staubbach, or Brook of
Dust, when a young man clad in green came
down the valley. It was a German mechanic,
with flaxen ringlets hanging over his shoulders, and
a guitar in his hand. His step was free and elas-
tic, and his countenance wore the joyous expres-
sion of youth and health. He approached the

A ROMANCE 257

company with a courteous salutation ; and, after
the manner of travelling apprentices, asked char-
ity with the confident air of one unaccustomed to
refusal. Nor was he refused in this instance.
The presence of those we love makes us com-
passionate and generous. Flemming gave him a
piece of gold ; and, after a short conversation,
he seated himself, at a little distance, on the grass,
and began to play and sing. Wonderful and many
were the soft accords and plaintive sounds that
came from that little instrument, touched by the
student's hand. Every feeling of the human heart
seemed to find an expression there, and awaken
a kindred feeling in the hearts of those who heard
him. He sang strange German songs, so full of
longing, and of pleasing sadness, and hope, and
fear, and passionate desire, and soul-subduing sor-
row, that the tears came into Mary Ashburton's
eyes, though she understood not the words he
sang. Then his countenance glowed with tri-
umph, and he heat the strings like a drum, and
sang : —

" O, how the drum beats so loud !
Close beside me in the fight,
My dying brother says, Good Night !

17

258 HYPERION,

And the cannon's awful breath
Screams the loud halloo of Death !

And the drum,

And the drum,

Beats so loud '. "

Many were the words of praise, when the
young musician ended ; and, as he rose to depart,
they still entreated for one song more. Whereup-
on he played a lively prelude ; and, looking full
into Flemming's face, sang, with a pleasant smile
and still in German, this little song : —

" 1 know a maiden fair to see ;
Take care !
She can both false and friendly be.
Beware ! Beware !
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee !

" She has two eyes, so soft and brown ;
Take care !
She gives a side-glance and looks down.
Beware ! Beware !
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee !

" And she has hair of a golden hue ;
Take care !
And what she says, it is not true.
Beware ! Beware !
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee '

A ROMANCE. 259

" She has a bosom as white as snow ;
Take care !
She knows how much it is best to show.
Beware ! Beware !
Trust lier not,
She is fooling tliee !

" She gives thee a garland woven fair ;
Take care !
It is a fool's-cap for thee to wear.
Beware ! Beware !
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee ! "

The last stanza he sung in a laughing, trium-
phant tone, which resounded above the loud clang
of his guitar like the jeering laugh of Till Eu-
lenspiegel. Then, slinging his guitar over his
shoulder, he took off his green cap, and made a
leg to the ladies, in the style of Gil Bias ; vs^aved
his hand in the air, and walked quickly down the
valley, singing, " Ade ! Ade ! Ada I "

260 HYPERION,

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FOUNTAIN OF OBLIVION.

The power of magic in the Middle Ages ere
ated monsters who followed the unhappy magi
cian everywhere. The power of love in all
ages creates angels, who likewise follow the happy
or unhappy lover everywhere, even in his dreams.
By such an angel was Paul Flemming now haunt-
ed, both when he waked and when he slept. He
walked as in a dream, and was hardly conscious
of the presence of those around him. A sweet
face looked at him from every page of every
book he read ; arid it was the face of Mary Ash-
burton ! — a sweet voice spake to him in every
sound he heard ; and it was the voice of Mary
Ashburton ! Day and night succeeded each other,
with pleasant interchange of light and darkness ;
but to him the passing of time was only as a dream.
When he arose in the morning, he thought only

A ROMANCE. 261

of her, and wondered if she were yet awake ; and
whon he lay down at night, he thought only of
her, and how, like the Lady Christabel,

" Her gentle limbs she did undress,
And lay down in her loveliness.''

And the livelong day he was with her, either in
reality or in day-dreams hardly less real ; for, in
each delirious vision of his waking hours, her
beauteous form passed like the form of Beatrice
through Dante's heaven ; and, as he lay in the
summer afternoon, and heard at times the sound
of the wind in the trees, and the sound of Sabbath
bells ascending up to heaven, holy wishes and
prayers ascended with them from his inmost soul,
beseeching that he might not love in vain ! And
whenever, in silence and alone, he looked into
the silent, lonely countenance of Night, he recall-
ed the impassioned lines of Plato : —

" Lookest thou at the stars ? If I were heaven,
With all the eyes of heaven would I look down on thee ! "

O, how beautiful it is to love ! Even thou, tha
sneerest at this page, and laughest in cold indiffer
ence or scorn, if others are near thee, — thou,
too, must acknowledge its truth, when thou art
alone ; and confess that a foolish world is prone to
laugh in public at what in private it reveres, as

262 HYPERION,

one of the highest impulses of our nature, —
namely, Love !

One by one the objects of our affection depart
from us. But our affections remain, and like
vines stretch forth their broken, wounded tendrils
for support. The bleeding heart needs a balm
to heal it ; and there is none but the love of its
kind, — none but the affection of a human heart !
Thus the wounded, broken affections of Flemming
began to lift themselves from the dust and cling
around this new object. Days and weeks pass-
ed ; and, like the Student Crisostomo, he ceased
to love, because he began to adore. And with
this adoration mingled the prayer, that, in that hour
when the world is still, and the voices that praise
are mute, and reflection cometh like twilight,
and the maiden, in her day-dreams, counted the
number of her friends, some voice in the sacred
silence of her thoughts might whisper his name !

They were sitting together one morning, on
the green, flowery meadow, under the ruins of
Burg Unspunnen. She was sketching the ruins.
The birds were singing, one and all, as if there
were no aching hearts, no sin nor sorrow, in the
world. So motionless was the bright air, that the
shadow of the trees lay engraven on the grass.

A ROMANCE. 26'ii

The distant snow-peaks sparkled in the sun, and
nothing frowned, save the square tower of the old
ruin above them.

" What a pity it is," said the lady, as she
stopped to rest her weary fingers, "what a pity
it is, that there is no old tradition connected with
this ruin ! "

" I will make you one, if you wish," said
Flemming.

"Can you make old traditions ? "

" O, yes ! I made three, the other day, about
the Rhine, and one very old one about the Black
Forest. A lady with dishevelled hair ; a robber
with a horrible slouched hat ; and a night storm
among the roaring pines."

" Delightful ! Do make one for me."

" With the greatest pleasure. Where will you
have the scene ? Here, or in the Black For-
est .? "

" In the Black Forest, by all means ! Begin."

" I will unite this ruin and the forest together.
But first promise not to interrupt me. If you
snap the golden threads of thought, they will float
away on the air like the film of the gossamer, and
I shall never be able to recover them."

"I promise."

264 HYPERION,

" Listen, then, to the Tradition of ' The
Fountain of Oblivion.' "

" Begin."

Fleinming was reclining on the flowery turf, a
the lady's feet, looking up with dreamy eyes into
her sweet face, and then into the leaves of the
linden-trees overhead.

" Gentle Lady ! Dost thou remember the
linden-trees of Biilach, — those tall and stately
trees, with velvet down upon their shining leaves,
and rustic benches underneath their overhanging
eaves ? A leafy dwelling, fit to be the home of elf
or fairy, where first I told my love to thee, thou
cold and stately Hermione ! A httle peasant girl
stood near, and listened all the while, with eyes of
wonder and delight, and an unconscious smile, to
hear the stranger still speak on in accents deep
yet mild, — none else was with us in that hour,
save God and that little child ! "

" Why, it is in rhyme ! "

" No, no ! the rhyme is only in your imagina-
tion. You promised not to interrupt me, and
you have already snapped asunder the gossamer
threads of as sweet a dream as was ever spun from
a poet's brain."

"It certainly did rhyme ! "

A ROMANCE. 265

" This was the reverie of the Student Hierony-
mus, as he sat at midnight in a chamber of this
old tower, with his hands clasped together, and
resting upon an open volume, which he should
have been reading. His pale face was raised,
and the pupils of his eyes dilated, as if the spirit-
world were open before him, and some beau-
teous vision were standing there, and drawing the
student's soul through his eyes up into heaven, —
as the evening sun, through parting summer-clouds,
seems to draw into its bosom the vapors of the
earth. O, it was a lovely vision ! I can see it
before me now !

" Near the student stood an antique bronze
lamp, with strange figures carved upon it. It
was a magic lamp, which once belonged to the
Arabian astrologer El Geber, in Spain. Its light
was beautiful as the light of stars ; and, night
after night, as the lonely wight sat alone and read
in this lofty tower, through the mist, and mirk,
and dropping rain, it streamed out into the dark-
ness, and was seen by many wakeful eyes. To
the poor Student Hieronymus it was a wonderful
Aladdin's Lamp ; for in its flame a Divinity re-
vealed herself unto him, and showed him treasures.
Whenever he opened a ponderous, antiquated

2G6 HYPERION,

tome, it seemed as if some angel opened for him
the gates of Paradise ; and already he was known
in the land as Hieronymus the Learned.

" But, alas ! he could read no more. The
charm was broken. Hour after hour he passed
with his hands clasped before him, and his fair
eyes gazing at vacancy. What could so disturb
die studies of this melancholy wight ? Lady, he
was in love ! Have you ever been in love } He
had seen the face of the beautiful Hermione ; and
as, when we have thoughtlessly looked at the sun.
our dazzled eyes, though closed, behold it still ;
so he beheld by day and by night the radiant
image of her upon whom he had too rashly gazed.
Alas ! he was unhappy ; for the proud Her
mione disdained the love of a poor student, whose
only wealth was a magic lamp. In marble halls,
and amid the gay crowd that worshipped her, she
had almost forgotten that such a being lived as the
Student Hieronymus. The adoration of his
heart had been to her only as the perfume of a
wild-flower which she had carelessly crushed
with her foot, in passing. But he had lost all ;
for he had lost the quiet of his thoughts ; and his
agitated soul reflected only broken and distorted
images of things. The world laughed at the poor

A ROMANCE. 267

Student, who, in his threadbare cassock, dared to
lift his eyes to the Lady Hermione ; while he sat
alone, in his desolate chamber, and suffered in
silence. He remembered many things which he
would fain have forgotten ; but which, if he had
forgotten them, he would have wished again to
remember. Such were the linden-trees of Bii-
lach, under whose pleasant shades he had told his
love to Hermione. This was the scene which he
wished most to forget, yet loved most to remem-
ber ; and of this he was now dreaming, with his
nands clasped upon his book, and that music in
his thoughts, which you. Lady, mistook for
rhyme.

" Suddenly, with a melancholy clang, the con-
vent clock struck twelve. It roused the Student
Hieronymus from his dream ; and rang in his
ears, like the iron hoofs of the steeds of Time.
The magic hour had come, when the Divinity
of the lamp most willingly revealed . herself to
her votary. The bronze figures seemed alive ;
a white cloud rose from the flame and spread
itself through the chamber, whose four walls
dilated into magnificent cloud-vistas ; a fra-
grance, as of wild-flowers, filled the air ; and a
dreamy music, like distant, sweet-Chiming bells.

268 HYPERION,

announced the approach of the midnight Divinity.
Through his streaming tears the heart-broken
Student beheld her once more descending a pass
in the snowy cloud-mountains, as, at evening, the
dewy Hesperus comes from the bosom of the
mist, and assumes his station in the sky. At her
approach, his spirit grew more calm ; for her
presence was, to his feverish heart, like a tropical
night, — beautiful and soothing and invigorating.
At length she stood before him, revealed in all her
beauty ; and he comprehended the visible language
of her sweet but silent lips, which seemed to say,
— ' What would the Student Hieronymus to-
night .'' — ' Peace ! ' he answered, raising his
clasped hands, and smiling through his tears.
' The Student Hieronymus imploreth peace ! '
' Then go,' said the spirit, ' go to the Fountain
of Oblivion in the deepest solitude of the Black
Forest, and cast this scroll into its waters ; and
thou shalt Ije at peace once more.' Hieronymus
opened his arms to embrace the Divinity, for her
countenance assumed the features of Hermione ;
but she vanished away ; the music ceased ; the
gorgeous cloud-land sank and fell asunder ; and
the student was alone within the four bare walls
of his chamber. As he bowed his head down-

A ROMANCE. 269

ward, his eye fell upon a parchment scroll, which
was lying beside the lamp. Upon it was written
only the name of Hermione !

" The next morning Hieronymus put the scroll
mto his bosom, and went his way in search of the
Fountain of Oblivion. A few days brought him
to the skirts of the Black Forest. He entered,
not without a feeling of dread, that land of
shadows ; and passed onward under melancholy
pines and cedars, whose branches grew abroad
and mingled together, and, as they swayed up and
down, filled the air with solemn twilight and a
sound of sorrow. As he advanced into the for-
est, the waving moss hung, like curtains, from
the branches overhead, and more and more shut
out the light of heaven ; and he knew that the
Fountain of Oblivion was not far off. Even
then the sound of falling waters was mingling with
the roar of the pines above him ; and ere long
he came to a river, moving in solemn majesty
through the forest, and falling with a dull, leaden
sound into a motionless and stagnant lake, above
which the branches of the forest met and mingled,
forming perpetual night. This was the Fountain
of Oblivion.

" Upon its brink the Student paused, and gazed

270 HYPERION,

into the dark waters with a steadfast look. They
were limpid waters, dark with shadows only.
And as he gazed, he beheld, far down in their
silent depths, dim and ill-defined outlines, waver-
ing to and fro, like the folds of a white garment
in the twilight. Then more distinct and perma
nent shapes arose, — shapes familiar to his mind,
yet forgotten and remembered again, as the frag-
ments of a dream ; till at length, far, far below
him he beheld the great City of the Past, with
silent marble streets, and moss-grown walls, and
spires uprising with a wave-like, flickering motion.
And, amid the crowd that thronged those streets,
he beheld faces once familiar and dear to him ;
and heard sorrowful, sweet voices singing, ' O,
forget us not ! forget us not ! ' and then the dis-
tant, mournful sound of funeral bells, that were
tolling below, in the City of the Past. But in the
gardens of that city there were children playing,
and among them one who wore his features, as
they had been in childhood. He was leading a
little girl by the hand, and caressed her often, and
adorned her with flowers. Then, like a dream,
the scene changed, and the boy had grown older,
and stood alone, gazing into the sky ; and, as he
gazed, his countenance changed again, and Hie

A ROMANCE. 271

ronymus beheld him, as if it had been his own
image in the clear water ; and before him stood a
beauteous maiden, whose face was hke the face
of Hermione, and he feared lest the scroll had
fallen into the water, as he bent over it. Start-
ing, as from a dream, he put his hand into his
bosom, and breathed freely again, when he found
the scroll still there. He drew it forth, and read
the blessed name of Hermione, and the city
beneath him vanished away, and the air grew
fragrant as with the breath of. May-flowers, and a
light streamed through the shadowy forest and
gleamed upon the lake ; and the Student Hierony-
mus pressed the dear name to his hps and ex-
claimed, with streaming eyes : ' O, scorn me as
thou wilt, still, still will I love thee ; and thy
name shall irradiate the gloom of my life, and
make the waters of Oblivion smile ! ' And the
name was no longer Hermione, but was changed
to Mary ; and the Student Hieronymus — is
lying at your feet. O gentle Lady '

' I did hear you talk-
Far above singing ; after you were gone,
I grew acquainted with my heart, and searched
What stirred it so ! Alas ! I found it lore.' "

272 HYPERION,

CHAPTER IX.

A TALK ON THE STAIRS.

No ! I will not describe that scene ; nor how
pale the stately lady sat on the border of the
green, sunny meadow ! The hearts of some
women tremble like leaves at every breath of
love which reaches them, and then are still
again. Others, like the ocean, are moved only
by the breath of a storm, and not so easily lulled
to rest. And such was the proud heart of Mary
Ashburton. It had remained unmoved by the
presence of this stranger ; and the sound of his
footsteps and his voice excited in it no emotion.
He had deceived himself! Silently they walk-
ed homeward through the green meadow. The
very sunshine was sad ; and the rising wind,
through the old ruin above them, sounded in his
ears like a hollow laugh !

Flemming went straight to his chamber. On
the way, he passed the walnut-trees under which

A ROMANCE. 273

he had first seen the face of Mary Ashburton.
Involuntarily he closed his eyes. They were
full of tears. O, there are places in this fair
world, which we never wish to see again, how-
ever dear they may be to us ! The towers of
the old Franciscan convent never looked so
gloomily as then, though the bright summer sun
was shining full upon them.

In his chamber he found Berkley. He was
looking out of the window, whistling.

" This evening I leave Interlachen for ever,"
said Flemming, rather abruptly. Berkley star-
ed.

" Indeed ! Pray, what is the matter ? You
look as pale as a ghost ! "

" And have good reason to look pale," replied
Flemming bitterly. " Hoffmann says, in one of
his note-books, that, on the eleventh of March,
at half past eight o'clock, precisely, he was an
ass. That is what I was this morning, at half past
ten o'clock, precisely, and am now, and I sup-
pose always shall be."

He tried to laugh, but could not. He then re-
lated to Berkley the whole story, from beginning
to end.

" This is a miserable piece of business ! " ex-
18

274 HYPERION,

claimed Berkley, when he had finished. " Strange
enough ! And yet I have long ceased to marvel
at the caprices of women. Did not Pan capti-
vate the chaste Diana ? Did not Titania love
Nick Bottom, with his ass's head. Do you think
that maidens' eyes are no longer touched with the
juice of love-ln-idleness ? Take my word for it,
she is in love with somebody else. There must
be some reason for this. No ; women never have
any reasons, except their will. But never mind.
Keep a stout heart. Care killed a cat. After
all, — what is she .'' Who is she .' Only a "

" Hush ! hush," exclaimed Flemming, in great
excitement. " Not one word more, I beseech
you. Do not think to console me, by depreciat-
ing her. She is very dear to me still ; a beauti-
ful, high-minded, noble woman."

" Yes," answered Berkley ; " that is the way
with you all, you young men. You see a sweet
face, or a something, you know not what, and
flickering reason says. Good night ; amen to com-
mon sense ! The imagination invests the beloved
object with a thousand superlative charms ; adorns
her with all the purple and fine linen, all the rich
apparel and furniture, of human nature. I did
the same, when I was young. I was once as des-

A ROMANCE. 275

perately in love as you are now ; and went through
all the

' Delicious deaths, sofl exhalations
Of soul, dear and divine annihilations;
A thousand unknown rites
Of joys, and rarefied delights.'

I adored, and was rejected. ' You are in love
with certain attributes,' said the lady. ' Damn
your attributes. Madam,' said I ; ' I know noth-
ing of attributes.' ' Sir,' said she, with dignity,
'you have been drinking.' So we parted. She
was married afterwards to another, who knew
something about atti-ibutes, I suppose. I have
seen her once since, and only once. She had a
baby in a yellow gown. I hate a baby in a yel-
low gown. How glad I am she did not marry
me ! One of these days, you will be ^lad you
have been rejected. Take my word for it."

" All that does not prevent my lot from being
a very melancholy one ! " said Flemming sadly.

" O, never mind the lot," cried Berkley laugh-
ing, " so long as you do n't get Lot's wife. If
the cucumber is bitter, throw it away, as the phi-
losopher Marcus Antoninus says, in his Medita-
tions. Forget her, and all will be as if you had
not known her."

276 HYPERION,

" T shall never forget her," replied Flemming,
rather solemnly. " Not my pride, but my affec-
tions, are wounded ; and the wound is too deep
ever to heal. I shall carry it with me always. 1
enter no more into the world, but will dwell only
in the world of my own thoughts. All great and
unusual occurrences, whether of joy or sorrow,
lift us above this earth ; and we should do well
always to preserve this elevation. Hitherto I
have not done so. But now I will no more de-
scend ; I will sit apart and above the world, with
my mournful, yet holy thoughts."

" Whew ! You had better go into society ; the
whirl and dehrium will cure you in a week. If
you find' a lady who pleases you very much, and
you wish to marry her, and she will not listen to
such a l^rrid thing, I see but one remedy, which
is to find another, who pleases you more, and
who will listen to it."

" No, my friend ; you do not understand my
character," said Flemming, shaking his head. " I
love this woman with a deep and lasting affec-
tion. I shall never cease to love her. This
may be madness in me ; but so it is. Alas and
alas ! Paracelsus of old wasted life in trying to
discover its elixir, which after all turned out to be

A ROMANCE, 277

alcohol ; and Instead of being made immortal
upon earth, he died drunk on the floor of a tav-
ern. The like happens to many of us. We
waste our best years in distilling the sweetest
flowers of life into love-potions, which after all
do not immortalize, but only intoxicate us. By
Heaven ! we are all of us mad."

" But are you sure the case is utterly hope-
less .? "

" Utterly ! utterly ! "

" And yet I perceive you have not laid aside
all hope. You still flatter yourself that the lady's
heart may change. The great secret of happi-
ness consists not in enjoying, but in renouncing.
But it is hard, very hard. Hope has as many-
lives as a cat or a king. I dare say you have
heard the old proverb, ' The king never dies.'
But perhaps ygu have never heard, that, at the
court of Naples, when the dead body of a mon-
arch lies in state, his dinner is carried up to him
as usual, and the court physician tastes it, to see
that it be not poisoned, and then the servants bear
it out again, saying, ' The king does not dine to-
day.' Hope in our souls is king ; and we also
say, ' The king never dies.' Even when in re-
ality he lies dead within us, in solemn mockery

278 HYPERION,

we offer him his accustomed food, but are con-
strained to say, ' The king does not dine to-day.'
It must be an evil day, indeed, when a king of
Naples has no heart for his dinner ! but you your-
self are a proof that the king never dies. You
are feeding your king, although you say he is
dead."

" To show you that I do not wish to cherish
hope," replied Flemming, " I sliall leave Interla-
chen to-morrow morning. I am going to the
Tyrol."

" You are right," said Berkley ; " there is
nothing so good for sorrow as rapid motion in
the open air. I shall go with you ; though
probably your conversation will not be very
various ; nothing but Edward and Kunigunde."

" What' do you mean by that ? "

" Go to Berlin, and you will find out. How-
ever, jesting apart, I will do all I can to cheer
you, and make you forget the Dark Ladie, and
this untoward accident."

" Accident ! " said Flemming. " This is no
accident, but God's providence, which brought
us together, to punish me for my sins."

" O, my friend," interrupted Berkley, " if
you see the finger of Providence so distinctly iji
every act of your life, you will end by thinking

A ROMANCE. 279

yourself an Apostle and Envoy Extraordinary.
I see nothing so very uncommon in what has
happened to you."

" What ! not when our souls are so akin to
each other ? when we seemed so formed to be
together, — to be one ? "

" I have often observed," replied Berkley
coldly, " that those who are of kindred souls
rarely wed together ; almost as rarely as those
who are akin by blood. Therefore, mad lover,
do not think to persuade thyself and thy scornful
lady that you have kindred souls ; but rather
the contrary, — that you are much unlike, and
each wanting in those qualities which most mark
and distinguish the other. Trust me, thy court-
ship wiU then be more prosperous. But good
morning. I must prepare for this sudden jour-
ney."

On the following morning, Flemming and Berk-
ley started on their way to Innsbruck, like Hu-
on of Bordeaux and Scherasmin on their way
to Babylon. Berkley's self-assumed duty was
to console his companion ; a duty which he per-
formed like an ancient Spanish Despenadora
whose business was to attend the sick, and put
her elbow into the stomach of the dying to short-
en their aeony.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

" Mortal, they softly say,

Peace to thy heart !
We too, yes, mortal,

Have been as thou art;
Hope-lifted, doubt-depressed,

Seeing in part,
Tried, troubled, tempted.

Sustained, — as thou art."

BOOK THE FOURTH.

CHAPTER I.

A MISERERE.

In the Orlando Innamorato, Malagigi, the nec-
romancer, puts all the company to sleep by read-
ing to them from a book. Some books have this
power of themselves and need no necromancer.
Fearing, Gentle Reader, that mine may be of this
kind, I have provided these introductory chapters
from time to time, like stalls or Misereres in a.
church, with flowery canopies and poppy-heads
over them, where thou mayest sit down and sleep

No, — the figure is not a bad one. This book
does somewhat resemble a minster, in the Ro-
manesque style, with pinnacles, and flying but-
tresses, and roofs,

" Gargoyled with greyhounds, and with many lions
Made of f>ne gold, with divers sundry dragons."

284 HVPERION,

You step into its shade and coolness out of the
hot streets of life ; a mysterious light streams
through the painted glass of the marigold win-
dows, staining the cusps and crumpled leaves of
the window-shafts, and the cherubs and holy-wa-
»er-stoups below. Here and there is an image
of the Virgin Mary ; and other images, " in di-
vestures, called weepers, stand in housings made
about the tomb " ; and, above all, swells the vast
dome of heaven, with its star-mouldings, and the
flaming constellations, like the mosaics in the
dome of St. Peter's. Have you not heard funer-
al psalms from the chantry } Have you not
heard the sound of church-bells, as I promised, —
mysterious sounds from the Past and Future, as
from the belfries outside the cathedral, — even
such a mournful, mellow, watery peal of bells,
as is heard sometimes at sea, from cities afar off
below the horizon .'

I know not how this Romanesque, and at times
flamboyant, style of architecture may please the
critics. They may wish, perhaps, that I had
omitted some of my many ornaments, my ara-
besques, and roses, and fantastic spouts, and Holy-
Roods and Galilee-steeples. But would it then
have been Romanesque }

A ROMANCL. 285

But perhaps, gentle reader, thou art one of
those who think the days of romance gone for-
ever. Believe it not ! O, believe it not ! Thou
hast at this moment in thy heart as sweet a
romance as was ever written. Thou art not less
a woman, because thou dost not sit aloft in a
tower, with a tassel-gentle on thy wrist. Thou
art not less a man, because thou wearest no
hauberk, nor mail-sark, and goest not on horse-
back after foolish adventures. Every one has a
romance in his own heart. All that has blessed
or awed the world lies there ; and

"The oracle within him, that which lives,
He must invoke and question, — not dead books,
Not ordinances, not mould-rotten papers."

Sooner or later, some passages of every one's
romance must be written, either in words or
actions. They will proclaim the truth ; for
Truth is thought which has assumed its appro-
priate garments, either of words or actions ;
while Falsehood is thought which, disguised in
words or actions not its own, comes before the
Wind old world, as Jacob came before the patri-
arch Isaac, clothed in the goodly raiment of his
brother Esau. And the world, like the patriarch,
is often deceived ; for, though the voice is Jacob's

286 HYPERION,

voice, yet the hands are the hands of Esau, and
the False takes away the birthright and the
blessing from the True. Hence it is that the
world so often Ufts up its voice and weeps.

That very pleasing and fanciful Chinese ro-
mance, the Shadow in the Water, ends with the
hero's marrying both the heroines. I hope my
gentle reader feels curious to know the end of
this romance, which is a shadow upon the earth ;
and see whether there be any marriage at all in
it.

That is the very point I am now thinking of,
as I sit here at my pleasant chamber-window,
and enjoy the balmy air of a bright summer
morning, and watch the motions of the golden
robin, that sits on its swinging nest on the outer-
most pendulous branch of yonder elm. The
broad meadows and the steel-blue river remind
me of the meadows of Unterseen and the river
Aar ; and beyond them rise magnificent snow-
white clouds, piled up like Alps. Thus the
shades of Washington and William Tell seem to
walk together on these Elysian Fields ; for it was
here, that, in days long gone, our great patriot
dwelt ; and yonder clouds so much resemble the
snowy Alps, that they remind me irresistibly of

A ROMANCE. 287

the Swiss. Noble examples of a high purpose
and a fixed will ! Do they not move, Hyperion-
like, on high .'' Were they not, likewise, sons of
Heaven and Earth }

Nothing can be more lovely than these summei
mornings ; nor than the southern window at which
I sit and write, in this old mansion, which is like
an Italian villa. But, O, this lassitude, — this
weariness, — when all around me is so bright !
I have this morning a singular longing for flowers ;
a wish to stroll among the roses and carnations,
and inhale their breath, as if it would revive me.
I wish I knew the man who called flowers "the
fugitive poetry of Nature." From this distance,
from these scholastic shades, — from this leafy,
blossoming, and beautiful Cambridge, — I stretch
forth my hand to grasp his, as the hand of a
poet- ! — Yes ; this morning I would rather stroll
with him among the gay flowers, than sit here and
write. I feel so weary !

Old men with their staves, says the Spanish
poet, are ever knocking at the door of the grave.
But I am not old. The Spanish poet might
have included the young also. — No matter!
Courage, and forward ! The romance must be
finished, and finished soon.

288 HYPERION,

thou poor authorling ! Reach a little deep-
er into the human heart ! Touch those strings, —
touch those deeper strings, and more boldly, or
the notes will die away like whispers, and no ear
shall hear them, save thine own ! And, to
cheer thy solitary labor, remember that the
secret studies of an author are the sunken piers
upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame,
spanning the dark waters of Oblivion. They
are out of sight ; but without them no superstruc-
ture can stand secure !

And now, Reader, since the sermon is over,
and we are still sitting here in this Miserere, lei
us read aloud a page from the old parchment
manuscript on the lettern before us ; let us sing
it through these dusky aisles, like a Gregorian
chant, and startle the sleeping congregation !

" I have read of the great river Euripus, which
ebbjth and floweth seven times a day, and with
such violence, that it carrieth ships upon it with
full sail directly against the wind. Seven times
in an hour ebbeth and floweth rash opinion in
the torrent of indiscreet and troublesome appre-
hensions, carrying critic calumny and squint-
eyed detraction mainly against the wind of wis-
dom and judgment."

Tn secula seculorum ' Amen !

A ROMANCE. 289

CHAPTER II.

CURFEW BELLS.

Welcome, Disappointment ! Thy hand is
cold and hard, but it is the hand of a friend !
Thy voice is stern and harsh, but it is the voice
of a friend ! O, there is something sublime in
calm endurance, something sublime in the reso-
lute, fixed purpose of suffering without complain-
ing, which makes disappointment oftentimes bet-
ter than success !

The Emperor Isaac Angelus made a treaty
with Saladin, and tried to purchase the Holy
Sepulchre with gold. Richard Lion-heart scorn-
ed such alliance, and sought to recover it by
battle. Thus do weak minds make treaties with
the passions they cannot overcome, and try to
purchase happiness at the expense of principle.
But the resolute will of a strong man scorns such
means ; and struggles nobly with his foe, to
achieve great deeds. Therefore, whosoever thou
19

290 HYPERION,

art that sufferest, try not to dissipate thy sorrow
by the breath of the world, nor drown its voice
in thoughtless merriment. It is a treacherous
peace that is purchased by indulgence. Rather
take this sorrow to thy heart, and make it a part
of thee, and it shall nourish thee till thou art
strong again.

The shadows of the mind are like those of the
body. In the morning of life, they all lie behind
us ; at noon, we trample them under foot ; and
in the evening, they stretch long, broad, and deep-
ening before us. Are not, then, the sorrows
of childhood as dark as those of age .'' Are not
the morning shadows of life as deep and broad as
those of its evening .' Yes ; but morning shadows
soon fade away, while those of evening reach
forward into the night and mingle with the coming
darkness. Man is begotten in delight and born
in pain ; and in these are the rapture and labor
of his life foreshadowed from the beginning.
But the hfe of man upon this fair earth is made up,
for the most part, of little pains and little pleasures.
The great wonder-flowers bloom but once m a
lifetime.

A week had already elapsed since the events
recorded in the last chapter. Paul Flemmmg

A ROMANCE. 291

went his way, a melancholy man, " drinking the
sweet wormwood of his sorrow." He did not
rail at Providence and call it fate, but suffered
and was silent. It is a beautiful trait in the
lover's character, that he thinks no evil of the
object loved. What he suffered was no swift
storm of feeling, that passes away with a noise,
and leaves the heart clearer ; but a dark phantom
had risen up in the clear night, and, like that of
Adarnastor, hid the stars ; and if it ever vanished
away for a season, still the deep sound of the
moaning main would be heard afar, through many
a dark and lonely hour. And thus he journeyed
on, wrapped in desponding gloom, and mainly
heedless of all things around him. His mind was
distempered. That one face was always before
him ; that one voice forever saying : —

" You are not the Magician."

Painful, indeed, it is to be misunderstood and
undervalued by those we love. But this, too, in
our life, must we learn to bear without a murmur ;
for it is a tale often repeated.

There are persons in this world to whom all
local associations are naught. The genius of the
place speaks not to them. Even on battle-fields,
where the voice of this genius is loudest, they

292 HYPERION,

hear only the sound of their own voices ; they
meet there only their own dull and pedantic
thoughts, as the old grammarian Brunetto Latini
met on the plain of Roncesvalles a poor student
riding on a bay mule. This was not always the
case with Paul Flemming, but it had become so
now. He felt no interest in the scenery around
him. He hardly looked at it. Even the difficult
mountain-passes, where, from his rocky eyrie the
eagle-eyed Tyrolese peasant had watched his foe,
and the roaring, turbid torrent underneath, which
had swallowed up the bloody corse, that fell from
the rocks like a crushed worm, awakened no
lively emotion in his breast. All around him
seemed dreamy and vague ; all within dim, as in a
sun's eclipse. As the moon, whether visible or
invisible, has power over the tides of the ocean,
so the face of that lady, whether present or absent,
had power over the tides of his soul ; both by day
and night, both waking and sleeping. In every
pale face and dark eye he saw a resemblance to
her ; and what the day denied him in reality the
night gave him in dreams.

" This is a strange, fantastic world," said
Berkley, after a very long silence, during which
the two travellers had been sitting each in his

A ROMANCE. 293

corner of the travelling carriage, wrapped in his
own reflections. "A very strange, fantastic
vcorld ; where each one pursues his own golden
bubble, and laughs at his neighbour for doing the
same. I have been thinking how a moral Lin-
niEus would classify our race. I think he would
divide it, — not as Lord Byron did, into two great
classes, the bores and those who are bored, — but
into three, namely : Happy Men, Lucky Dogs,
and Miserable Wretches. This is more true
and philosophical, though perhaps not quite so
comprehensive. He is the Happy Man, who,
blessed with modest ease, a wife and ■ children,
sits enthroned in the hearts of his family, and
knows no other ambition than that of making
those around him happy. But the Lucky Dog
is he, who, free from all domestic cares, saunters
up and down his room, in morning gown and
slippers ; drums on the window, of a rainy day ;
and, as he stirs his evening fire, snaps his fingers
at the world, and says, ' I have no wife nor chil-
dren, good or bad, to provide for.' I had a
friend who is now no more. He was taken

away in the bloom of life, by a very rapid

widow. He was by birth and by profession a
Deau, — born with a quizzing-glass and a cane.

294 HYPERION,

Cock of the walk, he flapped his wings, and crow-
ed among the feathered tribe. But, alas ! a fair,
white partlet has torn his crest out, and he shall
crow no more. In the evening he rocks the
cradle, and gets up in the night when the child
cries. Like a Goth of the Dark Ages, he con-
sults his wife on all mighty matters, and looks
upon her as a being of more than human good-
ness and wisdom. In short, the women all say
he is a very domestic man, and makes a good
husband ; which, under the rose, is only a more
polite way of saying he is henpecked. He
is a Happy Man. I have another dear friend,
who is a sexagenary bachelor. He has one of
those well-oiled dispositions which turn upon the
hinges of the world without creaking. The hey-
day of life is over with him ; but his old age is
sunny and chirping ; and a merry heart still
nestles in his tottering frame, like a swallow that
builds in a tumble-down chimney. He is a pro-
fessed Squire of Dames. The rustle of a silk
gown is music to his ears, and his imagination is
continually lantern-led by some will- with-a- wisp in
the shape of a lady's stomacher. In his devotion
to the fair sex, — the muslin, as he calls it, —
he is the gentle flower of chivalry. It is amusing

A ROMANCE. 295

10 see how quick he strikes into the scent of a
lady's handkerchief. When once fairly in pursuit,
there is no such thing as throwing him out. His
heart looks out at his eye ; and his inward delight
tingles down to the tail of his coat. He loves to
bask in the sunshine of a smile ; when he can
breathe the sweet atmosphere of kid gloves and
cambric handkerchiefs, his soul is in its element ;
and his supreme delight is to pass the morning, to
use his own quaint language, ' in making dodging
calls, and wriggling round among the ladies ! '
He is a Lucky Dog."

" And as a specimen of the class of Miserable
Wretches, I suppose you will take me," said
Flemming, making an effort to enter into his
friend's humor. " Certainly I am wretched
enough. You may make me the stuffed bear, —
the specimen of this class."

" By no means," repUed Berkley ; " you are
not reduced so low. He only is utterly wretched,
who is the slave of his own passions, or those of
others. This, I trust, will never be your condi-
tion. Why so wan and pale, fond lover .'' Do
you remember Sir John Suckling's song ?

' Why so wan and pale, fond lover ?
Pr'ythee why so pale ?

296 HYPERION,

Will, if looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail ?
Pr'ythee why so pale ?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?

Pr'ythee why so mute ?
Will, if speaking well can't win her,

Saying nothing do 't?

Pr'ythee why so mute ?

' Quit, quit, for shame ! this cannot move.
This cannot take her !
If of herself she do not love,
Nothing will make her I
The devil take her ! '

How do you like that ? "

" To you I say quit, quit for shame ! " replied
Flemming. " Why quote the songs of that witty
and licentious age ? Have you no better conso-
lation to offer me ? How many, many times
must I tell you, that I bear the lady no ill-will ?
T do not blame her for not loving me. I desire
her happiness, even at the sacrifice of my own."

" That is generous in you, and deserves a
belter fate. But you are so figurative in all you
say, that a stranger would think you had no real
feeling, and only fancied yourself in love."

" Expression of feeling is different with differ-
ent minds. It is not always simple. Some

A ROMANCE. 297

minds, when excited, naturally speak in figures
and similitudes. They do not on that account
feel less deeply. This is obvious in our most
common modes of speech. It depends upon the
mdividual."

" Kyrie Eleyson 1 "

" Well, abuse my figures of speech as much
as you please. What I insist upon is, that
you shall not abuse the lady. When did you
ever hear me breathe a whisper against her ? "

" Olio ! Now you speak like Launce to his
dog ! "

Their conversation, which had begun so mer-
rily, was here suddenly interrupted by a rattling
peal of thunder, that announced a near-approach-
ing storm. It was late in the afternoon, and the
whole heaven black with low, trailing clouds.
Still blacker the storm came sailing up majestical-
ly from the southwest, with almost unbroken vol-
leys of distant thunder. The wind seemed to be
storming a cloud redoubt ; and marched onward
with dust, and the green banners of the trees flap-
ping in the air, and heavy cannonading, and occa-
sionally an explosion, like the blowing up of a
powder-wagon. Mingled with this was the sound
of thunder-bells from a village not far off. They

298 HYPERION,

were all ringing dolefully to ward off the thunder
bolt. At the entrance of the village stood a large
wooden crucifix, around which was a crowd of
priests and peasants, kneeling in the wet grass, by
the roadside, with their hands and eyes lifted to
heaven, and praying for rain. Their prayer was
soon answered.

The travellers drove on with the driving wind
and rain. They had come from Landeck, and
hoped to reach Innsbruck before midnight. Night
closed in, and Flemming fell asleep with the loud
storm overhead, and at his feet the roaring Inn, a
mountain torrent leaping onward as wild and rest-
less as when it first sprang from its cradle in the
solitudes of Engaddin ; meet emblem of himself,
thus rushing through the night. Plis slumber was
long, but broken ; and at length he awoke in ter
ror ; for he heard a voice pronounce in his ear
distinctly these words : —

" They have brought the dead body."
They were driving by a churchyard at the en-
trance of a town ; and among the tombs a dim
lamp was burning before an image of the Virgin.
It had a most unearthly appearance. Flemming
almost feared to see the congregation of the dead
go into the church and sing their midnight mass.

A ROMANCE. 299

He spoke lo Berkley, but received no answer -
he was in a deep sleep.

" Tlien it was only a dream," said he to him
self; "yet how distinct the voice was! O, if
we had spiritual organs, to see and hear things
now invisible and inaudible to us, we should be-
hold the whole air filled with the departing souls
of that vast multitude which every moment dies,
— should behold them streaming up like thin va-
pors heavenward, and hear the startling blast of
the archangel's trump sounding incessant through
the universe and proclaiming the awful judgment-
day ! Truly, the soul departs not alone on its last
journey, but spirits of its kind attend it, when not
ministering angels ; and they go in families to the
unknown land ! Neither in life nor in death are
we alone."

He slept again at intervals ; and at length,
though long after midnight, reached Innsbruck be-
tween sleeping and waking ; his mind filled with
dim recollections of the unspeakably dismal night
journey ; — the climbing of hills, and plunging in-
to dark ravines ; the momentary rattling of the
wheels over paved streets of towns, and the suc-
ceeding hollow rolling and tramping on the wet
earth ; the blackness of the night ; the thunder

300 HYPERION

and lightning and rain ; the roar of waters, leap-
ing through deep chasms by the roadside ; and
the wind through the mountain-passes, sounding
loud and long, like the inextinguishable laughter
of the gods.

The travellers on the morrow lingered not long
in Innsbruck. They did not fail, however, to
visit the tomb of Maximilian in the Franciscan
Church of the Holy Cross, and gaze with some
admiration upon the twenty-eight gigantic bronze
statues of Godfrey of Bouillon, and King Arthur,
and Ernest the Iron-man, and Frederick of the
Empty Pockets, kings and heroes, and others,
which stand leaning on their swords between the
columns of the church, as if guarding the tomb
of the dead. These statues reminded Flemming
of the bronze giants which strike the hours on
the belfry of San Basso, in Venice, and of the
flail-armed monsters that guarded the gateway of
AngulafFer's castle in Oberon. After gazing
awhile at these motionless sentinels, they went
forth, and strolled through the public gardens,
with the jagged mountains right over their heads,
and all around them tall, melancholy pines, like
Tyrolese peasants, with shaggy hair ; and at their
feet the mad torrent of the Inn, sweeping with

A ROMANCE. 30J

turbid waves through the midst of the town. In
the afternoon, they drove on towards Salzburg,
through the magnificent mountain-passes of Wai-
dering and Unjjen.

302 HYPERION,

CHAPTER III.

SHADOWS ON THE WALL.

On the following morning, Flemming awoke in
a chamber of the Golden Ship at Salzburg, just
as the clock in the Dome-church opposite was
striking ten. The window-shutters were closed,
and the room was nearly dark. He was lying
with his hands crossed upon his breast, and his
eyes looking up at the white curtains overhead.
He thought them the white marble canopy of a
tomb, and himself the marble statue lying beneath
When the clock ceased striking, the eight-and-
twenty gigantic bronze statues from the Church
of Holy Rood in "Innsbruck stalked into the
chamber, and arranged themselves along the walls,
which spread into dimly lighted aisles and arches.
On the painted windows he saw Interlachen, with
its Franciscan cloister, and the Square Tower of
the ruins. In a pendent, overhead, stood the

A ROMANCE. 303

German mechanic, as Saint Vitus ; and on a lavato
rv, or basin of holy-water, below, sat a cherub,
with the form and features of Berkley. Then
the organ-pipes began to blow, and he heard the
voices of an invisible choir chanting. And anon
the gilded gates in the bronze screen before the
chancel opened, and a bridal procession passed
through. The bride was clothed in the garb of
tne Middle Ages ; and held a book in her hand,
with velvet covers, and golden clasps. It was
Mary Ashburton. She looked at him, as she
passed. Her face was pale ; and there were
tears in her sweet eyes. Then the gates closed
again ; and one of the oaken poppy-heads over a
carved stall, in the shape of an owl, flapped its
broad wings, and hooted, " To-whit ! to-whoo ! "
Then the whole scene changed ; and he thought
himself a monk's-head on a gutter-spout ; and it
rained dismally ; and Berkley was standing un-
derneath with an umbrella, laughing !

In other words, Flemming was in a raging fe-
ver, and dehrious. He remained in this state for
a week. The first thing he was conscious of was
Hearing the doctor say to Berkley : —

" The crisis is passed. I now consider him out
of danger."

304 HYPERION,

He then fell into a sweet sleep ; the wild fever
had swept away like an angry, red cloud, and the
refreshing summer rain began to fall like dew up-
on the parched earth. Still another week, and
Flemming was " sitting clothed, and in his right
mind." Berkley had been reading to him ; and
still held the book in his hand, with his fore-finger
between the leaves. It was a volume of Hoff-
mann's writings.

" How very strange it is," said he, " that you
can hardly open the biography of any German au-
thor, but you will find it begin with an account of
•his grandfather ! It will tell you how the vener-
able old man walked up and down the garden
among the gay flowers, wrapped in his morning
gown, which is likewise covered with flowers, and
perhaps wearing on his head a little velvet cap.
Or you will find him sitting by the chimney-cor-
ner in the great chair, smoking his ancestral pipe,
with shaggy eyebrows, and eyes like birdnests un-
der the eaves of a house, and a mouth like a Nu-
remberg nutcracker's. The future poet climbs
upon the old man's knees. His genius is not rec-
ognized yet. He is thought for the most part a
dull boy. His father is an austere man, or per-
haps dead. But the mother is still there, a sick-

A ROMANCE. 305

ly, samt-like woman, with knitting-work ; and au
elder sister, who has already been in love, ana
wears rings on her fingers ; —

* Death's heads, and such mementoes,
Her grandmother and worm-eaten aunts left to hei,,
To tell her what her beauty must arrive at.' "

" But this is not the case with the life of Hoff-
mann, if I recollect right."

" No, not precisely. Instead of the grand-
father, we have the grandmother, a stately dame,
who has long since shaken hands with the vanities
of life. The mother, separated from her hus-
band, is sick in mind and body, and flits to and
fro like a shadow. Then there is an affectionate
maiden aunt ; and an uncle, a retired judge, the
terror of little boys, — the Giant Despair of this
Doubting Castle in Kdnigsberg ; and occasion-
ally the benign countenance of a venerable grand-
uncle, whom Lamotte Fouque called a hero of
the olden time in morning gown and slippers,
looks in at the door and smiles. In the upper
story of the same house lived a poor boy with
his mother, who was so far crazed as to believe
herself to be the Virgin Mary, and her son the
Saviour of the world. Wild fancies, likewise,
were to sweep through the brain of that child.
20

306 HYPERIOiV,

He was to meet Hoffmann elsewhere and be his
friend in after years, though as yet they knew
nothmg of each other. This was Werner, who
has made some noise in German literature as the
author of many wild Destiny-Dramas."

" Hoffmann died, I believe, in Berlin."

" Yes. He left Konigsberg at twenty years
of age, and passed the next eight years of his
life in the Prussian-Polish provinces, where he
held some petty office under government, and
took to himself many bad habits and a Polish
wife. After this he was Music-Director at va-
rious German theatres, and led a wandering,
wretched life for ten years. He then went to
Berlin as Clerk of the Exchange, and there re-
mained till his death, which took place some sev-
en or eight years afterward."

" Did you ever see him .-' "

" I was in Berlin during his lifetime, and saw
him frequently. I shall never forget the first time.
It was at one of the .SEsthetic Teas given by a
literary lady unter den Linden, where the lions
were fed with convenient food, from tea and
bread and butter up to oysters and Rhine-wine.
During the evening, my attention was arrested by
the entrance of a strange little figure, with a wild

A ROMANCE. 307

head of brown hair. His eyes were bright gray ;
and his thin lips closely pressed together with an
expression of not unpleasing irony. This strange-
looking personage began to bow his way through
the crowd, wiih quick, nervous, hinge-like motions,
much resembling those of a marionnette. He had
a hoarse voice, and such a rapid utterance, that,
although I understand German well enough for
ordinary purposes, I could not make out one
half he said. Ere long he had s.eated himself at
the piano-forte, and was improvising such wild,
sweet fancies, that the music of one's dreams is
not more sweet and wild. Then suddenly some
painful thought seemed to pass over his mind, as
if he imagined that he was there to amuse the
company. He rose from the piano-forte, and
seated himself in another part of the room ; where
he began to make grimaces, and talk loud while
others were singing. Finally he disappeared like
a hobgoblin, laughing, ' Ho ! ho I ho ! ' I ask-
ed a person beside me who this strange being
was. ' Tliat was Hoffmann,' was the answer.
' The Devil ! ' said I. ' Yes,' continued my in-
formant ; ' and if you should follow him now, you
would see him plunge into an obscure and unfre-
quented wine-cellar, and there, amid boon com-

308 HYPERION,

panions, with wine and tobacco-smoke, and quirks
and quibbles, and quaint, witty sayings, turn the
dim night into glorious day.' "

" What a strange being ! "

" I once saw him at one of his night-carouses.
He was sitting in his glory, at the head of the ta-
ble ; not stupidly drunk, but warmed with wine,
which made him madly eloquent, as the Devil's
Elixir did the monk Medardus. There, in the
full tide of witty discourse, or, if silent, his gray
hawk-eye flashing from beneath his matted hair,
and taking note of all that was grotesque in the
company round him, sat this unfortunate genius,
till the day began to dawn. Then he found his
way homeward, having, like the souls of the envi-
ous in Purgatory, his eyelids sewed together with
iron wire ; — though his was from champagne
bottles. At such hours he wrote his wild, fantas-
tic tales. To his excited fancy every thing as-
sumed a spectral look. The shadows of familiar
things about him stalked like ghosts through the
haunted chambers of his soul ; and the old por-
traits on the walls winked at him, and seemed step-
ping down from their frames ; till, aghast at the
spectral throng about him, he would call his wife
from her bed, to sit by him while he wrote."

A ROMANCE. 309

" No wonder he died in the prime of life ! "
" No. The only wonder is, that he could
have followed this course of life for six yfearsi
I am astonished that it did not kill him sooner."
" But death came at last in an appalling shape."
" Yes ; his forty-sixth birthday found him sit^
ting at home in his arm-chair, with his friends
around him. But the rare old wine — he al-
ways drank the best — touched not the sick
man's lips that night. His wonted humor was
gone. Of all his 'jibes, his gambols, his songs,
his flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the
table on a roar, not one now, to mock his own
grinning! — quite chap-fallen.' The conversa
tion was of death and the grave. And when one
of his friends said that life was not the highest
good, Hoffmann interrupted him, exclaiming, with
a startling earnestness, — 'No, no! Life, hfe,
only hfe ! on any condition whatsoever ! ' Five
months after this he had ceased to suffer, because
he had ceased to live. He died piecemeal.
His feet and hands, his legs and arms, gradually,
and in succession, became motionless, dead. But
his spirit was not dead, nor motionless ; and,
through the solitary day or sleepless night, lying
in his bed, he dictated to an amanuensis his

310 HYPERION,

last stones. Strange stories, indeed, were they
for a dying man to write ! Yet such deliglit did
he talce in dictating them, that he said to his
friend Hitzig, that, upon the whole, he was willing
to give up for ever the use of his hands, if he
could but preserve the power of writing by dicta-
tion. Such was his love of life, — of what he
called the sweet habitude of being ! "

" Was it not he, who in his last hours express-
ed such a longing to behold the green fields once
more, and exclaimed, — ' Heaven ' it is already
summer, and I have not yet seen a single green
tree ' .' "

" Yes, that was Hoffmann. Soon afterwards
he died. The closing scene was striking. He
gradually lost all sensation, though his mind re-
mained vigorous. Feeling no more pain, he said
to his physician, — ' It will soon be over now. 1
feel no more pain.' He thought himself well
again ; but the physician knew that he was dying,
and said, — ' Yes, it will soon be over ! ' The
next morning he called his wife to his bedside, and
begged her to fold his motionless hands together.
Then, as he raised his eyes to heaven, she heard
him say, ' We must, then, think of God, also ! '
More sorrowful words than these have seldom

A ROMANCE. 311

fallen from the lips of man. Shortly afterwards
the flame of life glared up within him ; he said he
was well again ; that in the evening he should go
on with the story he was writing ; and wished that
the last sentence might be read over to him.
Shortly after this they turned his face to the wall,
and he died."

" And thus passed to its account a human soul,
after much self-inflicted sufiering. Let us tread
lightly upon the poet's ashes. For my part, J
confess that I have not the heart to take him
from the general crovv.d of erring, sinful men, and
judge him harshly. The little I have seen of the
world, and know of the history of mankind,
teaches me to look upon the errors of others in
sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history
of one poor heart that has sinned and sufl^ered,
and represent to myself the struggles and tempta-
tions it has passed, — the brief pulsations of joy,
— the feverish inquietude of hope and fear, — the
tears of regret, — the feebleness of purpose, — the
pressure of want, — the desertion of friends, —
the scorn of a world that has little charity, — the
desolation of the soul's sanctuary, — and threat-
ening voices within, — health gone, — happiness
gone, — even hope, that stays longest with us.

312 HYPERION,

gone, — I have little heart for aught else than
thankfulness that it is not so with me, and would
fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with
Him from whose hands it came,

' Even as a little girl,
Weeping and laughing in her childish sport.' "

" You are right. And it is worth a student's
while to observe calmly how tobacco, wine, and
midnight did their work like fiends upon the deli-
cate frame of Hoffmann ; and no less thoroughly
upon his delicate mind. He who drinks beer
thinks beer; and he who drinks wine thinks
wine ; and he who drinks midnight thinks mid-
night. He was a man of rare intellect. He was
endowed with racy humor, and sarcastic wit, and
a glorious imagination. But the fire of his genius
burned not peacefully and with a steady flame
upon the hearth of his home. It was a glaring
and irregular flame ; — for the branches that he
fed it with were not branches from the Tree of
Life, — but from another tree that grew in Para-
dise, — and they were wet with the unhealthy
dews of night, and more unhealthy wine ; and
thus, amid smoke and ashes, the fire burned fit-
fully, and went out with a glare which leaves the
beholder blind."

A ROMANCE. 313

" This fire within him was a Meleager's fire
brand ; and, when it burned out, he died. And,
as you say, marks of all this are clearly visible in
Hoffmann's writings. Indeed, when I read his
strange fancies, it is with me as when in the sum-
mer night I hear the rising wind among the trees,
and the branches bow, and beckon with their long
fingers, and voices go gibbering and mocking
through the air. A feeling of awe and mysterious
dread comes over me. I wish to hear the sound
of living voice or footstep near me, — to see a
friendly and familiar face. In truth, if it be late
at night, the reader as well as the writer of these
unearthly fancies would fain have a patient, meek
eyed wife, with her knitting-work, at his elbow."

Berkley smiled ; but Flemming continued with-
out noticing the smile, though he knew what was
passing in the mind of his friend : —

" The Hfe and writings of this singular being
interest me in a high degree. Sometimes we may
learn more from a man's errors than from his
virtues. Moreover, from the common sympa-
thies of our nature, souls that have struggled and
suffered are dear to me. Willingly do I recog-
nize their brotherhood. Scars upon their fore-
heads do not so deform them that they cease to

314 HYPERION,

interest. They are always signs of struggle ;
though, alas ! too often, likewise, of defeat.
Seasons of unhealthy, dreamy, vague delight are
followed by seasons of weariness and darkness.
Where are then the bright fancies, that, ainid the
great stillness of the night, arise like stars in the
firmament of our souls .'' The morning dawns,
the light of common day shines in upon us, and
the heavens are without a star ! From the lives
of such men we learn that mere pleasant sensa-
tions are not happiness ; that sensual pleasures
are to be drunk sparingly, and, as it were, from
the palm of the hand ; and that those who bow
down upon their knees to drink of these bright
streams that water life are not chosen of God
either to overthrow or to overcome ! "

" I think you are very lenient in your judgment.
This is not the usual defect of critics. Like
Shakspeare's Samphire-gatherer, they have a
dreadful trade ! and, to make the simile complete,
they ought to hang for it ! "

" Methinks, it would be hard to hang a man for
the sake of a simile. But now go on with the
Phantasy-Pieces in Callot's manner."

" By the way, who was this Callot ? "

'' He was a Loraine painter, of the seventeenth

A ROMANCE. 315

century, celebrated for his wild and grotesque
conceptions. These sketches of HolFmann are
imitations of his style."

" And which of them shall I read to you next }
The Ritter Gliick ; or the Musical Sufferings of
John Kreisler ; or that exquisite story of the
Golden Jar, wherein is depicted the hfe of Poesy
in this commonplace world of ours .' "

" Read the shortest. Read Kreisler. That
will amuse me. It is a picture of his own suffer-
ings at the Esthetic Teas in Berlin, supposed to
be written in pencil on the blank leaves of a
music-book."

Thereupon Berkley leaned back in his easy-
chair, and read as follows.

HYPERION,

CHAPTER IV.

MUSICAL SUFFERINGS OF JOHN KREISLER.

" Theit are all gone! I might have known it
by the whispering, shuffling, coughing, huoimiiig
through all the notes of the gamut. It was a true
swarra of bees, leaving the old hive. Gottlieb has
lighted fresh candles for me, and placed a bottle
of Burgundy on the piano-forte. I can play no
more, I am perfectly exhausted. My glorious old
friend here on the music-stand is to blame for
that. Again he has borne me away through ihe
air, as Mephistopheles did Faust, and so high, that
I took not the slightest notice of the little men
under me, though I dare say they made noise
enough. A rascally, worthless, wasted evening !
But now I am well and merry ! However, while
I was playing, I took out my pencil, and on page
sixty-three, under the last staff, noted down a
couple of good flourishes in cipher with my right

A ROMANCE. 317

hand, while the left was struggling away in the
torrent of sweet sounds. Upon the blank page at
the end I go on writing. I leave all ciphers and
sweet sounds, and with true delight, like a sick man
restored to health, who can never stop relating
what he has suffered, I note down here circumstan-
tially the dire agonies of this evening's tea-party.
And not for myself alone, but likewise for all thosa
who from time to time may amuse and edify
themselves with my copy of John Sebastian
Bach's Variations for the Piano-forte, published
by Nageli in Ziirich, and who find my marks at
the end of the thirtieth variation, and, led on by
the great Latin Verte, (I will write it down the
moment I get through this doleful statement of
grievances,) turn over the leaf and read.

" They will at once see the connection. They
know that the Geheimerath Rodelein's house is a
charming house to visit in, and that he has two
daughters, of whom the whole fashionable world
proclaims with enthusiasm, that they dance like
goddesses, speak French like angels, and play and
sing and draw like the Muses. The Geheimerath
Rodelein is a rich man. At his quarterly dinners
he brings on the most delicious wines and richest
dishes. All is established on a footing of the

318 HYPERION,

greatest elegance ; and whoever at his tea-parties
does not amuse himself heavenly, has no ton, no
esprit, and particularly no taste for the fine arts.
It is with an eye to these, that, with the tea, punch,
wine, ices, etc., a little music is always served
up, which, like the other refreshments, is very
quietly swallowed by the fashionable world.

" The arrangements are as follows. — After every
guest has had time enough to drink as many cups of
tea as he may wish, and punch and ices have been
handed round twice, the servants wheel out the
card-tables for the elder and more solid part of the
company, who had rather play cards than any mu-
sical instrument; and, in fact, this kind of playing
does not make such a useless noise as the other,
and you hear only the clink of money.

" This is a hint for the younger part of the com-
pany to pounce upon the Misses Rodelein. A
great tumult ensues ; in the midst of which you
can distinguish these words, —

'" Schbnes Fr'duleinI do not refuse us the
gratificaiion of your heavenly talent ! O, sing
something! that 's a good dear! — impossible, —
bad cold, — the last ball ! have not practised any-
thing, — oh, do, do, we beg of you,' etc.

" Meanwhile Gottlieb has opened the piano-forte,

&

A ROMANCE. 319

and placed the well-known music-book on the
stand ; and from the card-table cries the respect-
able mamma, —

" ' Chantez done, mes enfants! '

" That is the cue of my part. I place myself at
the piano-forte, and the Rodeleins are led up to the
instrument in triumph.

" And now another difficulty arises. Neither
wishes to sing first.

'"You know, dear Nanette, how dreadfully
hoarse I am.'

" ' Why, my dear Marie, I am as hoarse as
you are.'

" ' I sing so badly ! — '

" ' O my dear child ; do begin ! '

" My suggestion, (I always make the same!)
that they should both begin together with a duet,
is loudly applauded ; — the music-book is thumbed
over, and the leaf, carefully folded down, is at
length found, and away we go with Dolce delV
anima, etc.

" To tell the truth, the talent of the Misses Ro-
delein is not the smallest. I have been an instructor
here only five years, and little short of two years in
the Rodelein family. In this short time, Fraulein
Nanette has made such progress, that a tune,

320 HYPERION,

which she has neard at the theatre only ten times,
and has played on the piano-forte, at farthest, ten
times more, she will sing right off, so that you
know in a moment what it is. Fraulein Marie
catches it at the eighth time ; and if she is some-
times a quarter of a note lower than the piano-
forte, after all it is very tolerable, considering
her pretty little doll-face, and very passable rosy
lips.

" After the duet, a universal chorus of applause !
And now arriettas and duettinos succeed each
other, and right merrily I hammer away at the
thousand-times-repeated accompaniments. During
the singing, the Finanzrathin Eberstein, by cough-
ing and humming, has given us to understand that
she also sings. Fraulein Nanette says :

" ' But, my dear Finanzrathin, now you must lei
us hear your exquisite voice."

" A new tumult arises. She has a bad cold in
her head, — she does not know any thing by heart!
Gottlieb brings straightway two armfuls of music-
books ; and the leaves are turned over again and
again. First she thinks she will sing Der Holle
Rache, etc. , then Hebe sich, etc.. , then Ac/i, Ich
debte, etc. In this embarrassment, I propose,
Ein Veilchen auf der Wiese, etc. But she is

A ROMANCE. 321

for the heroic style ; she wants to make a display,
and finally selects Constanze.

"O, scream, squeak, mew, gurgle, groan, ago-
nize, quiver, quaver, just as much as you please,
Madam, I have my foot on the fortissimo pedal,
and thunder myself deaf ! O Satan, Satan ! which
of thy goblins damned has got into this throat,
pinching, and kicking, and cuffing the tones about
so ! Four strings have snapped already, and one
hammer is lamed for life. My ears ring again, —
my head hums, — my nerves tremble ! Have all
the harsh notes from the cracked trumpet of a
mountebank been imprisoned in this little throat !
(But this excites me, — I must drink a glass of
Burgundy.)

" The applause was unbounded ; and some one
observed, that the Finanzrathin and Mozart had
put me quite into a blaze. I smiled with downcast
eyes, very stupidly. I could but acknowledge it.
And now all talents, which hitherto had bloomed
unseen, were in motion, wildly flitting to and fro.
They were bent upon a surfeit of music ; tuttis,
finales, choruses, must be performed. The Ca-
nonicus Kratzer sings, you know, a heavenly bass,
as was observed by the gentleman yonder, with
the head of Titus Andronicus, who modestly re-
21

322 HYPERION,

marked also, that he himself was properly only a
second-rate tenor ; but, though he said it, who
should not say it, he was nevertheless member of
several academies of music. Forthwith prepara-
tions are made for the first chorus in the opera of
Titus. It went off gloriously. The Canonicus,
standing close behind me, thundered out the bass
over my head, as if he were singing with bass-drums
and trumpet obligato in a cathedral. He struck
the notes gloriously ; but in his hurry he got the
tempo about twice too slow. However, he was
true to himself at least in this, that through the
whole piece he dragged along just half a beat be-
hmd the rest. The others showed a most decided
penchant for the ancient Greek music, which, as
is well known, having nothing to do with harmony,
ran on in unison or monotone. They all sang
treble, with slight variations, caused by accidental
rising or falling of the voice, say some quarter of
a note.

" This somewhat noisy affair produced a uni-
versal tragic state of feeling, namely a kind of
terror, even at the card-tables, which for the mo-
ment could no longer, as before, chime in melo-
dramatic, by weaving into the music sundry ex-
clamations ; as, for instance :

A ROMANCE. 323

"'O! I loved, — eight and forty, — was so
happy, — I pass, — then I knew not, — whist,—
pangs of love, — follow suit,' etc. — It has a very
pretty effect. (I fill my glass.)

" That was the highest point of the musical
exhibition this evening. ' Now it is all over,'
thought I to myself. 1 shut the book, and got
up from the piano-forte. But the Baron, my
ancient tenor, came up to me and said :

" ' My dear Herr Capellmeister, they say you
play the most exquisite voluntaries ! Now do
play us one ; only a short one, I entreat you ! '

" I answered very dryly, that to-day my fanta-
sies had all gone a wool-gathering ; and wliile we
are talking about it, a devil, in the shape of a
dandy, with two waistcoats, had smelt out Bach's
Variations, which were lying under my hat in the
next room. He thinks they are merely little
variations, such as Nel cormio nonpiu sento, or
All, vous dirai-je, maman, etc., and insists upon
it that I shall play them. I try to excuse myself,
but they all attack me. So then, ' Listen, and
burst with ennui,' think I to myself, — and be-
gin to work away.

" When I had got to variation number three,
several ladies departed, followed by the gentleman

324 HYPERION,

wilh the Titus- Andronicus head. The Rodeleins,
as their teacher was playing, stood it out, though nox
without difficulty, to number twelve. Number fif-
teen made the man with two waistcoats take to his
heels. Out of most excessive politeness, the Baron
stayed till number thirty, and drank up all the
punch, which Gottlieb placed on the piano-forte
for me.

" I should have brought all to a happy conclu-
sion, but, alas ! this number thirty — the theme —
tore me irresistibly away. Suddenly the quarto
leaves spread out to a gigantic folio, on which
a thousand imitations and developments of the
theme stood written, and I could not choose but
play them. The notes became alive, and glim-
mered and hopped all round about me, — an elec-
tric fire streamed through the tips of my fingers
into the keys, — the spirit, from which it gushed
forth, spread his broad wings over my soul, the
whole room was filled with a thick mist, in which
the candles burned dim, — and through which
peered forth now a nose, and anon a pair of eyes,
and then suddenly vanished away again. And
thus it came to pass, that I was left alone with
my Sebastian Bach, by Gottlieb attended, as by
a familiar spirit. (Your good health, Sir.)

A ROMANCE. 825

" Is an honest musician to be tormented with
music, as I have been to-day, and am so often
tormented ? Verily, no art is so damnably abused,
as this same glorious, holy Musica, who, in her
delicate being, is so easily desecrated. Have
you real talent, — real feeling for art.'' Then
study music, — do something worthy of the art,
— and dedicate your whole soul to the beloved
saint. If without this you have a fancy for qua-
vers and demi-semi-quavers, practise for yourself
and by yourself, and torment not therewith the
Capellmeister Kreisler and others.

" Well, now I might go home, and put the
finishing touch to my sonata for the piano-forte ; but
it is not yet eleven o'clock, and, withal, a beau-
tiful summer night. I will lay any wager, that at
my neighbour's, the Oberjagermeister, the young
ladies are sitting at the window, screaming down
into the street, for the twentieth time, with
harsh, sharp, piercing voices, ' When thine eye
is beaming, love,' — but only the first stanza, over
and over again. Obliquely across the way, some
one is murdering the flute, and has, moreover,
lungs like Rameau's nephew; and, in notes of
' linked sweetness long drawn out,' his neighbour
is trying acoustic experiments on the French horn.

326 HYPERION,

The numerous dogs of the neighbourhood are
growing unquiet, and my landlord's cat, inspired
by that sweet duet, is making, by my window, (for,
of course, mymusico-poetic laboratory is an attic,)
certain tender confessions, — upward through the
whole chromatic scale, soft complaining, to the
neighbour's tabby, with whom he has been in love
since March last ! Till this is all fairly over, I
think I will sit quietly here. Besides, there is
still blank paper and Burgundy left, of which I
forthwith take a sip.

" There is, as I have heard, an ancient law,
forbidding those, who follow any noisy handi-
craft, from living near literary men. Should not
then musical composers, poor, and hard beset, and
who, moreover, are forced to coin their inspira-
tion into gold, to spin out the thread of life withal,
be allowed to apply this law to themselves, and
banisii out of the neighbourhood all ballad-singers
and bagpipers ? What would a painter say, while
transferring to his canvass a form of ideal beauty,
if j'ou should hold up before him all manner of
wild faces and ugly masks ? He might shut his
eyes, and in this way, at least, quietly follow out
the images of fancy. Cotton, in one's ears, is of
no use ; one still hears the dreadful massacre.

A KOMANCIi. 327

And then the idea, — the bare idea, 'Now they
are going to sing, — now the horn strikes up,' —
IS enough to send one's subliraest thoughts to thr
very devil."

^28 HYPERION,

CHAPTER V.

SAINT GILGEN.

It was a bright Sunday morning when Flem
ming and Berkley left behind them the cloud-cap-
ped hills of Salzburg, and journeyed eastward
towards the lakes. The landscape around them
was one to attune their souls to holy musings.
Field, forest, hill and vale, fresh air, and the per-
fume of clover-fields and new-mown hay, birds
singing, and the sound of village bells, and the
moving breeze among the branches, — no laborers
in the fields, but peasants on their way to church,
coming across the green pastures, with roses in
their hats, — the beauty and quiet of the holy day
of rest, — all, all in earth and air, breathed upon
the soul like a benediction.

. They stopped to change horses at Hof, a hand-
ful of houses on the brow of a breezy hill, the
church and inn standing opposite to each other,
and nothing between them but the dusty road.

A ROMANCE. 329

and the churchyard, with its iron crosses, and the
fluttering tinsel of the funeral garlands. In the
churchyard, and at the inn-door, were groups of
peasants, waiting for divine service to begin.
They were clothed in their holyday dresses.
The men wore breeches and long boots, and
frock-coats with large metal buttons ; the women,
straw hats, and gay calico gowns with short waists
and scant folds. They were adorned with a pro-
fusion of great trumpery ornaments, and remind-
ed Flemming of the Indians in the frontier villages
of America. Near the churchyard-gate was a
booth, filled with flaunting calicoes ; and opposite
sat an old woman behind a table, which was load-
ed with gingerbread. She had a roulette at her
elbow, where the peasants risked a kreutzer for a
cake. On other tables, cases of knives, scythes,
reapinghooks, and other implements of husbandry
were offered for sale.

The travellers continued their journey, without
stopping to hear mass. In the course of the fore-
noon, they came suddenly in sight of the beautiful
lake of Saint Wolfgang, lying deep beneath,
them in the valley. On its shore, under them,
sat the white village of Saint Gilgen, like a swan
upon its reedy nest. They seemed to have taken

330 HYPERION,

it unawares, and as it were clapped their hand"
upon it in its sleep, and almost expected to see it
spread its broad snow-white wings and fly away.
The whole scene was one of surpassing beauty.

They drove leisurely down the steep hill, and
stopped at the village inn. Before the door was
a magnificent broad-armed tree, with benches and
tables beneath its shadow. On the front of the
house was written in large letfbrs, " PostrTavern
by Franz Schondorfer " ; and over this was a
large sundial, and a half-effaced painting of a
bear-hunt, covering the whole side of the house,
and mostly red. As they drove up, a procession
of priests with banners, and peasants with their
hats in their hands, passed by towards the church.
They were singing a solemn psalm. At the same
moment, a smart servant girl, with a black straw
hat set coquettishly on her flaxen hair, and a large
silver spoon in her girdle, came out of tlie inn, and
asked Flemming what he would please to order
for breakfast.

Breakfast was soon ready, and was served at
the head of the stairs, on an old-fashioned oaken
table in the great hall, into which the chambers
opened. Berkley ordered at the same time a tub
of cold water, in which he seated himself, with

A ROMANCE. 331

his coat on, and a bed-quilt thrown round his
knees. Thus he sat for an hour ; ate his break-
fast, and smoked a pipe, and laughed a good deal
He then went to bed and slept till dinner-time
Meanwhile Flemming sat in his chamber and read.
It was a large room in the front of the house,
looking upon the village and the lake. The win-
dows were latticed, with small panes, and the
window-sills filled with fragrant flowers.

At length the heat of noon was over. Day,
like a weary pilgrim, had reached the western
gate of heaven, and Evening stooped down to
unloose the latchets of his sandal-shoon. Flem-
ming and Berkley sallied forth to ramble by the
borders of the lake. Down the cool green glades
and alleys, beneath the illuminated leaves of the
forest, over the rising grounds in the glimmering
fretwork of sunshine and leaf-shadow, — an exhil-
arating walk ! The cool evening air by the lake
was like a bath. They drank the freshness of the
hour in thirsty draughts, and their breasts heaved
rejoicing and revived, after the feverish, long con-
finement of the sultry summer day. And there,
too, lay the lake, so beautiful and still ! Did it
not recall, think ye, the lake of Thun ?

On their return homeward, they passed near the"
village churchyard.

332 HYPERION,

" Let us go in and see how the dead rest,"
said Flemming, as they passed beneath the belfry
of the church ; and they went in, and lingered
among the tombs and the evening shadows.

How peaceful is the dwelling-place of those
who inhabit the green hamlets and populous cities
of the dead ! They need no antidote for care, —
no armor against fate. No morning sun shines
in at the closed windows and awakens them, nor
shall until the last great day. At most, a strag-
gling sunbeam creeps in through the crumbling
wall of an old, neglected tomb, — a strange visiter,
that stays not long. And there they all sleep,
the holy ones, with their arms crossed upon their
breasts, or lying motionless by their sides, — not
carved in marble by the hand of man, but formed
in dust by the hand of God. God's peace be
with them ! No one comes to them now, to hold
them by the hand, and with delicate fingers
to smooth their hair. They heed no more the
blandishments of earthly friendship. They need
us not, however much we may need them. And
yet they silently await our coming.

Beautiful is that season of life, when we can
say, in the language of Scripture, " Thou hast
the dew of thy youth." But of these flowers

k ROMANCE. 333

Death gathers many. He places them upon his
bosom, and he is transformed into something less
terrific than before. We learn to gaze and shud-
der not ; for he carries in his arms the sweet blos-
soms of our earthly hopes. We shall see their
all again, blooming in a happier land.

Yes, Death brings us again to our friends.
They are waiting for us, and we shall not long
delay. They have gone before us, and are hke
the angels in heaven. They stand upon the bor-
ders of the grave to welcome us, with the coun-
tenance of affection which they wore on earth ;
yet more lovely, more radiant, more spiritual !
He spake well who said that graves are the foot-
prints of angels !

Death has taken thee, too, and ihou hast the
dew of thy youth. He has placed thee upon his
bosom, and his stern countenance wears a smile.
The far country, toward which we journey, seems
nearer to us, and the way less dark ; for thou hast
gone before, passing so quietly to thy rest, that
day itself dies not more calmly !

It was in an hour of blessed communion with
the souls of the departed, that the sweet poet
Henry Vaughan wrote those few lines which
have made death lovely.

334 HrPERioN,

" They are all gone into a world of light,

And 1 ulone sit lingering here !

Their very memory is fair and bright,

And my sad thoughts doth clear.

"It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove.
Or those faint beams in which the liill is dressed
After the sun's remove.

" I see them walking in an air of glory.
Whose light doth trample on my days.
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmerings and decays.

" O holy hope, and high humility.
High as tlie heavens above !
These are your walks, and ye have showed them me.
To kindle ray cold love.

" Dear, beauteous Death ! the jewel of the just I
Shining nowhere but in the dark I
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust.
Could man outlook that mark !

" He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know.
At first sight, if the bird be flown ;
But what fair field or grove he sings in now.
That is to him unknown.

" And yet as angels, in some brighter dreams.
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our tvonted themes,
And into glory peep !

A ROMANCE. 335

" If a star were confined inio a tomb,.

Her captive flame must needs burn there ,
But when the liand that locked her up gave room,
She 'd shine through all the sphere.

' O Father of eternal life, and all

Created glories under thee !
Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall
Into true liberty.

' Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective, still as they pass.
Or else remove me hence unto that hill
Where I shall need no glass."

Such were Flemming's thoughts, as he stood
among the tombs at evening in the churchyard of
Saint Gilgen. A holy calm stole over him. The
fever of his heart was allayed. He had a mo-
ment's rest from pain ; and went back to his cham-
ber in peace. Whence came this holy calm, this
long-desired tranquilhty } He knew not ; yet the
place seemed consecrated. He resolved to linger
there, beside the lake, which was a Pool of Be-
thesda for him ; and let Berkley go on alone to the
baths of Ischel. He would wait for him there
in the sohtude of Saint Gilgen. Long after they
had parted for the night, he sat in his chamber,
and thought of what he had suffered, and enjoyed
the silence within and without. Hour after hour

336 HYPERION,

slipped by unheeded, as he sat lost in his reverie.
At length, his candle sank in its souket, gave one
flickering gleam, and expired with a sob. This
aroused him.

He went to the window, and peered out into
the dark night. It was very late. Twice already
since midnight had the great pulpit-orator Time,
like a preacher in the days of the Puritans, turned
the hourglass on his high pulpit, tiie church bel-
fry, and still went on with his sermon, thundering
downward to the congregation in the churchyard
and in the village. But they heard him not.
They were all asleep in their narrow pews, name-
ly, in their beds and in their graves. Soon after-
ward the cock crew ; and the cloudy heaven, like
the apostle who denied his Lord, wept bitterly.

A ROMANCE. Oiil

CHAPTER VI.

SAINT WOLFGANG.

The morning is lovely beyond expression.
The heat of die sun is great ; but a gentle wind
cools the air. Birds never sang more loud and
clear. The flowers, too, on the window-sill, and
on the table, rose, geranium, and the delicate
crimson cactus, are all so beautiful, that we think
the German poet right, when he calls the flowers
«" stars in the firmament of the earth." Out of
doors all is quiet. Opposite the window stands
the village schoolhouse. There are two parasite
trees, with their outspread branches nailed against
the white walls, like the wings of culprit kites.
There the rods grow. Under them, on a bench
at the door, sit school-girls ; and barefoot urchins
in breeches are speUing out their lessons. The
clock strikes twelve, and one by one they disap-
pear, and go into the hive, like bees at the sound
of a brass pan. At the door of the next house
22

338 HYPERION,

sits a poor woman, knitting in the shade ; and m
front of her is an aqueduct, pouring its cool, clear
water into a rough wooden trough. A travelling
carriage, without horses, stands at the inn-door,
and a postilion in red jacket is talking with a
hlacksmith, who wears blue woollen stockings and
a leather apron. Beyond is a stable, and still far-
ther a cluster of houses and the village church.
They are repairing the belfry and the bulbous
steeple. A little farther, over the roofs of the
houses, you can see Saint Wolfgang's lake.
Water so bright and beautiful hardly flows else-
where. Green and blue and silver-white run in-
to each other, with almost imperceptible change
And above are the pinnacles of the mountains ;
some bald, and rocky, and cone-shaped, and oth-
ers bold, and broad, and dark with pines.

Such was the scene which Paul Flemming be-
held from his window a few mornings after Berk-
ley's departure. The quiet of the place had
soothed him. He had become more calm. His
heart complained less loudly in the holy village
silence, as we are wont to lower our voices when
those around us speak in whispers. He began to
feel at times an interest in the lowly things about
him. The face of the landscape pleased him,

A ROMANCE. 339

but more than this the face of the poor woman
who sat knitting in the shade. It was a pale,
meek countenance, with more delicacy in its fea-
tures than is usual among peasantry. It wore al-
so an expression of patient suffering. As he was
looking at her, a deformed child came out of the
door and hung upon her knees. She caressed
him affectionately. It was her child, in whom
she beheld her own fair features distorted and
hardly to be recognized, as one sometimes sees
one's face reflected from the bowl of a spoon.

The child's deformity and the mother's tender-
ness interested the feelings of Flemming. The
landlady told him something of the poor woman's
history. She was the widow of a blacksmith,
who had died soon after their marriage. But she
survived to become a mother, as, in oaks, imme-
diately after fecundation, the male flower fades
and falls, while the female continues and ripens
into perfect fruit. Alas ! her child was deformed.
Yet she looked upon him with eyes of maternal
fondness and pity, loving him still more for his
deformity. And in her heart she said, as the
Mexicans say to their new-born offspring, " Child,
thou art come into the world to suffer. Endure,
and hold thy peace." Though poor, she was not

340 HYPERION,

entirely destitute ; for her husbana had left her,
besides the deformed child, a Hfe estate in a tomb
in the churchyard of Saint Gilgen. During the
week she labored for other people, and on Sun-
days for herself, by going to church and reading
the Bible. On one of the blank leaves she had
recorded the day of her birth, and that of her
child's, likewise her marriage and her husband's
death. Thus she lived, poor, patient, and resign-
ed. Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing
within it the crown of thorns and the cross of
Christ. Her ideas of heaven were few and sim-
ple. She rejected the doctrine that it was a place
of constant activity, and not of repose, and be-
lieved, that, when she -at length reached it, she
should work no more, but sit always in a clean
white apron, and sing psalms.

As Flemming sat meditating on these things, he
paid new homage in his heart to the beauty and
excellence of the female character. He thought
of the absent and the dead ; and said, with tears
in his eyes : —

" Shall I thank God for the green summer, and
the mild air, and the flowers, and the stars, and
all that makes this world so beautiful, and not for
the good and beautiful beings I have known m it .''

A ROMANCE. 341

Has not their presence been sweeter to me than
flowers ? Are they not higher and holier than
the stars ? Are they not more to me than all
things else ? "

Thus the morning passed away in musings ;
and in the afternoon, when Flemming was prepar-
ing to go down to the lake, as his custom was, a
carriage drew up before the door, and, to his
great astonishment, out jumped Berkley. The
first thing he did was to give the postmaster, who
stood near the door, a smart cut with his whip.
The sufferer gently expostulated, saying, —

" Pray, Sir, don't ; I am lame."

Whereupon Berkley desisted, and began in
stead to shake the postmaster's wife by the
shoulders, and order his dinner in English. But
all this was done so good-naturedly, and with such
a rosy, laughing face, that no offence was taken.

" So you have returned much sooner than you
intended," said Flemming, after the first friendly
salutations.

" Yes," replied Berkley ; " I became tired of
Ischel, — very tired. I did not find there the
friends I expected. Now I am going back to
Salzburg, and then to Gastein. There I shall
certainly find them. You must go with me."

342 HYPERION,

Flemming declined the invitation ; and propos-
ed to Berkley that he should join him in his ex-
cursion on the lake.

" You shall hear the grand echo of the Falken-
stein," said he, "and behold the scene of the
Bridal Tragedy ; and then we will go on as
far as the village of Saint Wolfgang, which you
have not yet seen, except across the lake."

" Well, this afternoon I devote to you ; for
to-morrow we part once more, and who knows
when we shall meet again .' "

They went down to the water's side without
farther delay ; and, taking a boat with two oars,
struck across an elbow of the lake towards a bar-
ren rock by the eastern shore, from which a small
white monument shone in the sun.

" That monument," said one of the boatmen,
a stout young lad in leather breeches, "was built
by a butcher, to the glory of Saint Wolfgang, who
saved him from drowning. He was one day rid-
ing an ox to market along the opposite bank ; when
the animal, taking fright, sprang into the water, and
swam over to this place, with the butcher on his
back."

" And do you think he could have done this,"
asked Berkley, " if Saint Wolfgang had not
nelped him .' "

A ROMANCE. 343

" Of course not ! " answered leather-breeches ;
and the Englishman laughed.

From this point they rowed along under the
shore to a low promontory, upon which stood
another monument, commemorating a more tragi-
cal event.

" This is the place I was speaking of," said
Flemming, as the boatmen rested on their oars.
" The melancholy and singular event it com-
memorates happened more than two centuries
ago. There was a bridal party here upon the
ice, one winter ; and in the midst of the dance the
ice broke, and the whole merry company were
drowned together, except the fiddlers, who were
sitting on the shore."

They looked in silence at the monument, and
at the blue quiet water, under which the bones of
the dancers lay buried, hand in hand. The mon-
ument is of stone, painted white, with an over-
hanging roof to shelter it from storms. In a
niche in front is a small image of the Saviour, in
a sitting posture ; and an inscription upon a mar-
ble tablet below says that it was placed there by
Longinus Walther, and his wife, Barbara Juliana
von Hainberg ; themselves long since peacefully
crumbled to dust, side by side, in some church-
yard.

344 HYPERION,

" That was breaking the ice with a ven-
geance ! " said Berkley, as they pushed out into
the lake again ; and ere long they were floating
beneath- the mighty precipice of Falkenstein ; a
steep wall of rock, crowned with a chapel and a
hermitage, where in days of old lived the holy
Saint Wolfgang. It is now haunted only by an
echo, so distinct and loud, that one might imagine
the ghost of the departed saint to be sitting there,
and repeating the voices from below, — not word
by word, but sentence by sentence, as if he were
passing them up to the recording angel.

" Ho ! ho ! ho ! " shouted Berkley ; and the
sound seemed to strike the wall of stone, like the
flapping of steel plates ; — " Ho ! ho ! ho ! How
are you to-day, Saint Wolfgang? You infernal
old rascal! How is the Frau von Wolfgang? —
God save great George, our king ! Damn your
eyes ! Hold your tongue ! Ho ! ho ! ha ! ha !
hi!"

And the words were recorded above ; and a
voice repeated them with awful distinctness in the
Dlue depths overhead ; and Flemming felt in his
inmost soul the contrast between the holy heavens,
and the mockery of laughter, and the idle words,
which fall back from the sky above us and soil
not its purity.

A ROMANCE.

In half an hour they were at the village of
Saint Wolfgang, threading a narrow street, above
which the roofs of quaint, picturesque old houses
almost met. It led them to a Gothic church ;
a magnificent one for a village ; — in front of
which was a small court, shut in by Italian-look-
ing houses, with balconies, and flowers at the
windows. Here a bronze fountain of elaborate
workmanship was playing in the shade. On its
summit stood an image of the patron saint of the
village ; and, running round the under lip of the
water-basin below, they read this inscription in old
German rhymes : —

" I am in the honor of Saint Wolfgang raised.
Abbot Wolfgang Habel of Emensee, he hath
made me for the use and delight of poor pilgrim
wight. Neither gold nor wine hath he , at this
water shall he merry be. In the year of the
Lord fifteen hundred and fifteen hath the work
completed been. God be praised ! "

As they were deciphering the rude characters
of this pious inscription, a village priest came
down a high flight of steps from the parsonage near
the church, and courteously saluted the strangers.
After returning the salutation, the mad English-
man, without preface, asked him how many nat-

346 HYPERION,

ural children were annually born in the parish
The question seemed to astonish the good father ;
but he answered it civilly, as he did several
other questions, which Flemming thought rather
indiscreet, to say the least.

" You will excuse our curiosity," said he to
the priest, by way of apology. " We are stran-
gers from distant countries. My friend is an
Englishman, and I an American."

Berkley, however, was not so easily silenced.
After a few moments' conversation, he broke out»
into most audacious Latin, in which the only
words clearly intelligible were : —

" Plurimum reverende, in Christo religiosis-
sime, ac clarissime Domine, necnon et amice ob-
servandissime ! Petrus sic est locutus : ' Nee
argentum mihi, nee aurum est ; sed quod habeo,
hoc tibi do ; surge et ambula.' "

He seemed to be speaking of the fountain.
The priest answered meekly, —

" Non intellexi, Domine ! "

But Berkley continued with great volubility to
speak of his being a stranger in the land, and all
men being strangers upon earth, and hoping to
meet the good priest hereafter in the kingdom of
heaven. The priest seeemed confounded and

A ROMANCE. 347

abashed Through the mist of a strange pronun-
ciation, he could recognize only here and there a
familiar word. He took out his snuff-box ; and
tried to quote a passage from Saint Paul : —

" Ut dixit Sanctus Paulus : ' Qui bene facit
) ))

Here his memory failed him, or, as the French
say, he was at the end of his Latin, and, stretch-
ing forth his long forefinger, he concluded in
German : —

" Yes ; — I don't — so clearly remember —
what he did say."

The Englishman helped him through with a
moral phrase ; and then, pulling off his hat, ex-
claimed very solemnly : —

" Vale, Domine doctissime et reverendis-
sime ! "

And the Dominie, as if pursued by a demon,
made a sudden and precipitate retreat down a
Qi^hl of steps in the street.

" There ! " said Berkley, laughing, " I beat
bim at his own weapons. What do you say of
my Latin } "

" I say of it," replied Flemming, " what Ho-
lofernes said of Sir Nathaniel's: — ^ Priscian a
little scratched 't will serve.' I think I have

348 HYPERION,

heard better. But what a whim ! I thought I
should have laughed aloud."

They were still sitting by the bronze fountain,
when the priest returned, accompanied by a short
man, with large feet, and a long blue surtout, so
greasy, that it reminded one of Polilla's in the
Spanish play, which was lined with slices of
pork. His countenance was broad and placid,
but his blue eyes gleamed with a wild, mysterious,
sorrowful expression. Flemming thought the
Latin contest was to be renewed, with more pow-
der and heavier guns. He was mistaken. The
stranger saluted him in German, and said, that,
having heard he was from America, he had
come to question him about that distant country,
for which he was on the point of embarking.
There was nothing peculiar in his manner, nor in
the questions he asked, nor the remarks he made.
They were the usual questions and remarks about
cities and climate and sailing the sea. At length
Flemming asked him the object of his journey to
America. The stranger came close to him, and,
lowering his voice, said very solemnly : —

" That holy man, Frederick Baraga, missiona-
ry among the Indians at Lacroix, on Lake Supe-
rior, has returned to his fatherland, Krain ; and

A ROMANCE. 349

I am chosen by Heaven to go forth as Minister
Extraordinary of Christ, to unite all nations and
people in one church ! "

Flemming almost started at the singular ear
nestness with which he uttered these words ; and
looked at him attentively, thinking to see ihe face
of a madman. But the modest, unassuming look
of that placid countenance was unchanged ; only
in the eyes burned a mysterious light, as if candles
had been lighted in the brain, to magnify the
daylight there.

" It is truly a high vocation," said he, in reply.
" But are you sure that this is no hallucination .'
Are you certain that you have been chosen by
Heaven for this great work ? "

" I am certain," rephed the German, in a tone
of great calmness and sincerity ; " and, if Saint
Peter and Saint Paul should come down from
heaven to assure me of it, my faith would be no
stronger than it now is. It has been declared to
me by many signs and wonders. I can no longer
doubt nor hesitate. I ha^jp already heard the
voice of the Spirit, speaking to me at night ; and
I know that I am an apostle, and chosen for this
work."

Such was the calm enthusiasm with which he

350 HYPERION,

spoke, that Flemming could not choose but listen.
He felt interested in this strange being. There
was something awe-inspiring in the spirit that
possessed liiin. After a short pause, he con-
tinued : —

" If you wish to know who I am, I can tell
you in few words. I think you will not find the
story without interest."

He then went on to relate the circumstances
recorded in the following chapter.

A ROMANCE. 351

CHAPTER VII.

THE STORY OF BROTHER BERNARDUS.

" I WAS born in the city of Stein, in ttie land
of Krain. My pious mother, Gertrude, sang me
psalms and spiritual songs in childhood ; and often,
when I awoke in the night, I saw her still sitting
patiently at her work by the stove, and heard her
singing those hymns of heaven, or praying in the
midnight darkness when her work was done. It
was for me she prayed. Thus, from my earliest
childhood, I breathed the breath of pious aspira-
tions. Afterwards I went to Laybach, as a stu-
dent of theology ; and, after the usual course of
study, was ordained a priest. I went forth to the
care of souls ; my own soul filled with the faith
that ere long all people would be united in one
church. Yet at times my heart was heavy, to
behold how many nations there are who have not
heard of Christ ; and how those, who are called
Christians, are divided into numberless sects, and

352 HYPERIOKj

how among these are many who are Christians m
name only. I determined to devote myself to
the great work of the one church universal, and,
for this purpose, to give myself wholly up to the
study of the Evangelists and the Fathers. I re-
tired to the Benedictine cloister of Saint Paul in
the valley of Lavant. The father-confessor in
the nunnery of Laak, where I then lived, strength-
ened me in this resolve. I had long walked with
this angel of God in a human form, and his part-
ing benediction sank deep into my soul. The
Prince-Abbot Berthold, of blessed memory, was
then head of the Benedictme convent. He re-
ceived me kindly, and led me to the library ,
where I gazed with secret rapture on the vast
folios of the Christian Fathers, from which, as
from an arsenal, I was to draw the weapons of
holy warfare. In the study of these the year of
my novitiate passed. I became a Franciscan
friar, and took the name of Brother Bernardus.
Yet my course of life remained unchanged. 1
seldom left the cloister ; but sat in my cell, and
pored over those tomes of holy wisdom. About
this time the aged confessor in Laak departed
this life. His death was made known to me
in a dream. It must have been after midnight.

A ROMANCE. 353

when I thought that I came into the church,
which was brillianiiy lighted up. The dead
body of the venerable saint was bro*ght in, at-
tended by a great crowd. It seemed lo me that
I must go up into the pulpit and pronounce his
funeral oration ; and, as I ascended the stairs,
the words of my text came into my mind : — •
' Blessed in the sight of the Lord is the deatJi of
his saints.' My funeral sermon ended in a strain
of exultation ; and I awoke with ' Amen ! ' upon
my lips. A few days afterwards, I heard that
on that night the old man died. After this event,
I became restless and melancholy. I strove in
vain to drive from me my gloomy thoughts. I
could no longer study. I was no longer content-
ed in the cloister. I even thought of leaving it.

" One night, I had gone to bed early, according
to my custom, and had fallen asleep. Suddenly
I was awakened by a bright and wonderful liglit,
which shone all about me, and filled me with
heavenly rapture. Shortly after, I heard a voice,
which pronounced distinctly these words, in the
Sclavonian tongue : — ' Remain in the cloister ! '
It was the voice of my departed mother. I was
fully awake ; yet saw nothing but the bright light,
which disappeared when the words had been
28

354 HYPERION,

spoken. Still it was broad daylight in my cham-
ber. I thought I had slept beyond my usual
hour. I iooked at my watch. It was just one
o'clock after midnight. Suddenly the daylight
vanished, and it was dark. In the morning I
arose, as if new-born, through the wonderful light
and the words of my mother's voice. It was no
dream. I knew it was the will of God that I
should stay ; and I could again give myself up
to quiet study. I read the whole Bible through
once more in the original text ; and went on with
the Fathers in chronological order. Often, af-
ter the apparition of the light, I awoke at the
same hour ; and though I heard no voice and saw
no light, yet was refreshed with heavenly conso
latioa.

'• Not long after this, an important event hap-
pened in the cloister. In the absence of the
deacon of the abbey, I was to preach the
Tiianksgiving sermon of Harvest-home. During
the week, the Prince-Abbot Berthold gave up the
ghost ; and my sermon became at once a thanks-
giving and funeral sermon. Perhaps it may not
be unworthy of notice, that I was thus called to
pronounce the burial discourse over the body of
the last reigning spiritual Prince-Abbot in Ger-

A ROMANCE. 355

many. He was a man of God, and worthy of
this honor.

" One year after this event, I was appointed
Professor of Biblical Hermeneutics in Klagen-
furt, and left the abbey for ever. In Klagenfurt
I remained ten years, dwelling in the same house,
and eating at the same table, with seventeen other
professors. Their conversation naturally suggest-
ed new topics of study, and brought to my no-
tice books which I had never before seen. One
day I heard at table, that Maurus Cappellari, a
monk of Camaldoli, had been elected Pope, un-
der the name of Gregory Sixteenth. He was
spoken of as a very learned man, who had writ-
ten many books. At this time I was a firm be-
liever in the Pope's infallibility ; and when I
heard these books mentioned, there arose in me
an irresistible longing to read them. I inquired
for them ; but they were nowhere to be had. At
length I heard that his most important work. The
Triumph of the Holy See and of the Church,
had been translated into German and published in
Augsburg. Ere long the precious volume was in
my hands. T began to read it with the profound-
est awe. The farther I read,- the more my won-
der grew. The subject was of the deepest inter-

S56 HYPERION,

est to me. T could not lay the book out of my
hand, till I had read it through with the closest
attention. Now at length my eyes were opened.
I saw before me a monk who had been educated
in an Italian cloister ; who, indeed, had read
much, and yet only what was calculated to
strengthen him in the prejudices of his childhood ,
and who had entirely neglected those studies up-
on which a bishop should most rely, in order to
work out the salvation of man. I perceived, at
the same time, that this was the strongest instru-
ment for battering down the walls which separ-
ate Christian from Christian. I saw, thougii as
yet dimly, the way in which the union of Chris-
tians in the one true church was to be accom-
plished. I knew not whether to be most aston-
ished at my own blindness, that, in all my previ-
ous studies, I had not perceived what the read-
ing of this single book made manifest to me ; or
at the blindness of the Pope, who had undertak-
en to justify such follies, without perceiving that
at the same moment he was himself lying in fatal
error. But since I have learned more thorough-
ly the ways of the Lord, I am now no more as-
tonished at this, but pray only to Divine Provi-
dence, who so mysteriously prepares all people

A ROMANCE. 357

to be united in one true church. I no longer be-
lieved in the Pope's infallibility ; nay, I believed
even, that, to the great injury of humanity, he
lay in fatal error. I felt, moreover, that now the
time had fully come, when I should publicly show
myself, and found in America a parish and a
school, and become the spiritual guide of men
and the schoolmaster of children.

" It was then, and on that account, that I
wrote in the Latin tongue my great work on Bib-
lical Hermeneutics. But in Germany it cannot
be published. The Austrian censor of the press
cannot find time to read it ; though I think, that,
if I have spent so many laborious days and sleep-
less nights in writing it, this man ought likewise to
find time enough not only to read it, but to exam
ine all the grounds of my reasoning, and point out
to me any errors, if he can find any. Notwith
standing, the Spirit gave me no repose, but urged
me ever mightily on to the perfection of my great
work.

" One morning I sat writing, under peculiar in-
fluences of the Spirit, upon the Confusion of
Tongues, the Division of the People, and the
importance of the study of Comparative Philol-
ogy, in reference to their union in one church.

358 HypERioN,

So wrapped was I in the thought, that T came
late into my lecture-room ; and after lecture re-
turned to my chamber, where I wrote till the
clock struck twelve. At dinner, one of the Pro-
fessors asked if any one had seen the star
about which so much was said. The Profes-
sor of Physics said that the student Johannes
Schminke had come to him in the greatest haste,
and besought him to go out and see the wonder-
ful star ; but, being incredulous about it, he made
no haste, and, when they came into the street,
the star had disappeared. When I heard the star
spoken of, my soul was filled with rapture ; and
a voice within me seemed to say, ' The great
time is approaching ; labor unweariedly in thy
work.' I sought out the student, and, like Her-
od, inquired diligently at what time the star ap-
peared. He informed me, that, just as the clock
was striking eight, in the morning, he went out of
his house to go to the college, and saw on the
square a crowd looking at a bright star. It was
the very hour, when I was writing alone in my
chamber on the importance of Comparative Phi-
lology in bringing about the union of all nations.
I felt that my hour had come. Strangely moved,
1 walked up and down my chamber. The even-

1 ROMANCE. 359

ing twilight came on. I lighted my lamp, and
drew the green curtains before the windows, and
sat down to read. But hardly had I taken the
book into my hand, when the Spirit began to
move me, and urge me then to make my last de-
cision and resolve. I made a secret vow that 1
would undertake the voyage to America. Sud-
denly my troubled thoughts were still. An un-
wonted rapture filled my heart. I sat and read
till the supper-bell rang. They were speaking
at table of a red, glaring meteor, which had just
been seen in the air, southeast from Klagenfurt,
and had suddenly disappeared with a dull, hollow
sound. It was the very moment at which I had
taken my final resolution to leave my native land.
Every great purpose and event of my life seemed
heralded and attended by divine messengers ; —
the voices of the dead ; the bright morning star,
shining in the clear sunshine ; and the red meteor
in the evening twilight.

. " I now began seriously to prepare for my de-
parture. The chamber I occupied had once
been the library of a Franciscan convent. Only
a thick wall separated it from the church. In
this wall was a niche, with heavy folding-doors,
which had served the Franciscans as a repository

360 HrpERioN,

for prohibited books. Here also I kept my pa-
pers, and my great work on Biblical Herme-
neutics. The inside of the doors was covered
with horrible caricatures of Luther, Mfilancthon,
Calvin, and other great men. I used often to
look at them with the deepest melancholy, when
I thought that these great men likewise had labor
ed upon earth, and fought with Satan in the
church. But they were persecuted, denounced,
condemned to die. So perhaps will it be with
me. I thought of this often, and armed myself
against the fear of death. I was in constant ap-
prehension, lest the police should search my
chamber during my absence, and, by examining
my papers, discover my doctrine and designs.
But the Spirit said to me : — ' Be of good cheer ;
I will so -blind the eyes of thy enemies, that it
shall not once occur to them to think of thy writ-
ings.'

" At length, after many difficulties and temp-
tations of the Devil, I am on my way to Amer-
ica. Yesterday I took leave of my dearest friend,
Gregory Kuscher, in Hallstadt. He seemed
filled with the Spirit of God, and has wonderful-
ly strengthened me in my purpose. All the hosts
of heaven looked on, and were glad. The old

A ROMANCE. 361

man kissed me, at parting ; and I ascended the
mountain as if angels bore me up in their arms.
Near the summit lay a newly fallen avalanche,
over which, as yet, no footsteps had passed.
This was my last temptation. Ha ! ' cried
I aloud, ' Satan has prepared a snaie for me ; but
I will conquer him with godly weapons.' I
sprang over the treacherous snow, with greater
faith than St. Peter walked the waters of the
Lake of Galilee; and came down the valley,
while the mountain peaks yet shone in the setting
sun. God smiles upon me. I go forth full of
hopeful courage. On Christmas next, I shall ex-
communicate the Pope."

Saying these words, he slowly and solemnly
took his leave, like one conscious of the great
events which awaited him, and withdrew with the
other priest into the church. Flemming could
not smile as Berkley did ; for in the soUtary, sin-
gular enthusiast, who had just left them, he saw
only another melancholy victim to solitude and
over-labor of the brain ; and felt how painful a
thing it is, thus to become unconsciously the alms-
man of other men's sympathies, a kind of blind
beggar for the charity of a good wish or a prayer.

The sun was now setting. Silently they float-

362 HypERioN,

ed back to Saint Gilgen, amid the cool evening
shadows. The village clock struck nine, as they
landed ; and as Berkley vi^as to depart early in
the morning, he went to bed betimes. On bid-
ding Flemming good night, he said : —

" I shall not see you in the morning ; so good
by, and God bless you. Remember my parting
words. Never mind trifles. In this world a man
must either be anvil or hammer. Care killed a
cat ! "

" I have heard you say that so often," replied
Flemming, laughing, " that I begin to believe it.
But I wonder if Care shaved his left eyebrow,
after doing the deed, as the ancient Egyptians
used to do ! "

" Aha ! now you are sweeping cobwebs, from
the sky ! Good night ! Good night ! "

A sorrowful event happened in the neighbour-
hood that night. The widow's child died sudden-
ly. " Woe is me ! " — thus mourns the child-
less mother in one of the funeral songs of Green
land ; — "Woe is me, that I should gaze upon
thy place and find it vacant ! In vain for thee
thy mother dries the sea-drenched garments ! "
Not in these words, but in thoughts like these,
did the poor mother bewail the death of her child,

A ROMANCE. 363

thinking mostly of the vacant place, and the daily
cares and solicitudes of maternal love. Fleniming
saw a light in her chamber, and shadows moving
to and fro, as he stood by the window, gazing in-
to the starry, silent sky. But he little thought
of the awful domestic tragedy which was even
then enacted behind those thin curtains !

^'64 HTPERION.

CHAPTER VIII.

FOOTPRINTS OF ANGELS.

It was Sunday morning ; and the church bells
were all ringing together. From the neighbour
ing villages came the solemn, joyful sounds,
floating through the sunny air, mellow and faint
and low, — all mingling into one harmonious
chime, like the sound of some distant organ in
heaven. Anon they ceased ; and the woods, and
the clouds, and the whole village, and the very air
itself, seemed to pray, — so silent was it every-
where.

Two venerable old men — high priests and
patriarchs were they in the land — went up the
pulpit stairs, as Moses and Aaron went up Mount
Hor, in the sight of all the congregation, — for
the pulpit stairs were in front, and very high.

Paul Flemming will never forget the sermon he
heard that day, — no, not even if he should live

A ROMANCE 365

to be as old as he who preached it. The text
was, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." It
was meant to console the pious, poor widow, who
sat right below him at the foot of the pulpit stairs,
all in black, and her heart breaking. He said
nothing of the terrors of death, nor of the gloom
of the narrow house ; but, looking beyond these
things, as mere circumstances to which the imag-
ination mainly gives importance, he told his hear-
ers of the innocence of childhood upon earth,
and the holiness of childhood in heaven, and how
the beautiful Lord Jesus was once a little child,
and now in heaven the spirits of little children
walked with him, and gathered flowers in the
fields of Paradise. Good old man ! In behalf
of humanity, I thank thee for these benignant
words ! And still more than I, the bereaved
mother thanked thee ; and from that hour, though
she wept in secret for her child, yet

" She knew he was with Jesus,
And she asked him not again.''

After the sermon, Paul Flemming walked forth
alone into the churchyard. There was no one
there, save a little boy, who was fishing with a
pin hook in a grave half full of water. But a few

866 HYPERION,

moments afterward, through the arched gateway
under the belfry, came a funeral procession. At
its head walked a priest in white surplice, chant-
ing. Peasants, old and young, followed him,
with burning tapers in their hands. A young girl
carried in her arms a dead child, wrapped in its
little winding-sheet. The grave was close under
the wall, by the church-door. A vase of holy
water stood beside it. The sexton took the child
from the girl's arms, and put it into a coffin ;
and, as he placed it in the grave, the girl held
over it a cross wreathed with roses, and the
priest and peasants sang a funeral hymn. When
this was over, the priest sprinkled the grave and
the crowd with holy water ; and then they all
went into the church, each one stopping, as he
passed the grave, to throw a handful of earth into
It, and sprinkle it with the hyssop.

A few moments afterwards, the voice of the
priest was heard saying mass in the church, and
Flemniing saw the toothless old sexton treading,
with his clouted shoes, the fresh earth into the
grave of the little child. He approached him,
and asked the age of the deceased. The sexton
leaned a moment on his spade, and, shrugging his
shoulders, replied i —

A ROMANCE. 367

••' Only an hour or two. It was born in the
night, and died this morning early."

" A brief existence," said Flemming. " The
child seems to have been born only to be buried
and have its name recorded on a wooden tomb-
stone."

The sexton went on with his work, and made
no reply. Flemming still lingered among the
graves, gazing with wonder at the strange devices
by which man has rendered death horrible and
the grave loathsome.

In the temple of Juno at Elis, Sleep and his
twin-brother, Death, were represented as children
reposing in the arms of Night. On various fu-
neral monuments of the ancients the Genius of
Death is sculptured as a beautiful youth, leaning
on an inverted torch, in the attitude of repose,
his wings folded and his feet crossed. In such
peaceful and attractive forms did the imagination
of ancient poets and sculptors represent death.
And these were men in whose souls the religion
of Nature was like the light of stars, beautiful, but
faint and cold ! Strange, that, in later days, this
angel of God, which leads us with a gentle hand
into the " land of the great departed, into the
silent land," should have been transformed into

368 HYPERION,

a monstrous and terrific thing ! Such is the
spectral rider on the white horse ; — such the
ghastly skeleton with scythe and hour-glass ; —
the Reaper, whose name is Death !

One of the most popular themes of poetry and
painting in the Middle Ages, and continuing
down even into modern times, was the Dance of
Death. In almost all languages is it written, —
the apparition of the grim spectre, putting a sud-
den stop to all business, and leading men away
into the " remarkable retirement " c(f the grave.
It is written in an ancient Spanish poem, and
painted on a wooden bridge in Switzerland. The
designs of Holbein are well known. The most
striking among them is that, where, from a group
of children sitting round a cottage hearth. Death
has taken one by the hand, and is leading it out
of the door. Quietly and unresisting goes the lit-
tle child, and in its countenance no grief, but won-
der only ; while the other children are weeping
and stretching forth their hands in vain tovi^ards
their departing brother. It is a beautiful design,
in all save the skeleton. An angel had been bet-
ter, with folded wings, and torch inverted.

And now the sun was growing high and warm.
A little chapel, whose door stood open, seemed

A ROMANCE. 369

to invite Flemming to enter and enjoy the grateful
coolness. He went in. There was no one
there. The walls were covered with paintings
and sculpture of the rudest kind, and with a few
funeral tablets. There was nothing there to move
the heart to devotion ; but in that hour the heart
of Flemming was weak, — weak as a child's
He bowed his stubborn knees, and wept. And,
O, how many disappointed hopes, how many
bitter recollections, how much of wounded pride
and unrequited love, veere in those tears through
which he read, on a marble tablet in the chapel
wall opposite, this singular inscription : —

" Look not mournfully into the Past. It
comes not back again. Wisely improve the
Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the
shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly
heart."

It seemed to him as if the unknown tenant of
that grave had opened his lips of dust, and spoken
to him the words of consolation, which his soul
needed, and which no friend had yet spoken. In
a moment the anguish of his thoughts was still.
The stone was rolled away from the door of his
heart ; death was no longer there, but an angel
clothed in white. He stood up, and his eyes
24

370 HYPERION,

were no more bleared with tears ; and, looking
into the bright, morning heaven, he said : —

" I will be strong ! "

Men sometimes go down into tombs, with pain-
ful longings to behold once more the faces of their
departed friends ; and as they gaze upon them,
lying there so peacefully with the semblance that
they wore on earth, the sweet breath of heaven
touches them, and the features crumble and fall
together, and are but dust. So did his soul then
descend for the last time into the great tomb of
the Past, with painful longings to behold once
more the dear faces of those he had loved ; and
the sweet breath of heaven touched them, and
they would not stay, but crumbled away and per
ished as he gazed. They, too, were dust. And
thus, far-sounding, he heard the great gate of the
Past shut behind him, as the Divine Poet did the
gate of Paradise, when the angel pointed him the
way up the Holy Mountain ; and to him likewise
was it forbidden to look back.

In the life of every man, there are sudden
transitions of feeling, which seem almost mirac-
ulous. At once, as if some magician had touch-
ed the heavens and the earth, the dark ctouds
melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity sue-

A ROMANCE. 371

ceeds the storm. The causes which produce
these sudden changes may have been long at
work within us ; but the changes themselves are
instantaneous, and apparently without sufficient
cause. It was so with Flemming ; and from that
hour forth he resolved that he would no longer
veer with every shifting wind of circumstance, — ■
no longer be a child's plaything in the hands of
Fate, which we ourselves do make or mar. He
resolved henceforward not to lean on others ; but
to walk self-confident and self-possessed ; — no
longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor wait
the fulfilment of boundless hopes and indiscreet
desires ; but to live in the Present wisely, alike
forgetful of the Past, and careless of what the
mysterious Future might bring. And from that
moment he was calm and strong ; he was re-
conciled with himself. His thoughts turned to
his distant home beyond the sea. An indescriba-
ble sweet feeling rose within him.

" Thither will I turn my wandering footsteps,"
said he, " and be a man among men, and no
longer a dreamer among shadows. Henceforth
be mine a life of action and reality ! I will work
m my own sphere, nor wish it other than it is.
This alone is health and happiness. This alone
is Life, —

372 HYPERION,

' Life that shall send
A challenge to its end,
And when it comes, say. Welcome, friend ! '

Why have I not made these sage reflections, this
wise resolve, sooner ? Can such a simple result
spring only from the long and intricate process oi
experience ? Alas ! it is not till time, with reck-
less hand, has torn out half the leaves from the
Book of Human Life, to light the fires of passion
with, from day to day, that man begins to see
that the leaves which remain are few in number,
and to remember, faintly at first, and then more
clearly, that upon the earlier pages of that book
was written a story of happy innocence, which he
would fain read over again. Then come listless
irresolution, and the inevitable inaction of despair ;
or else the firm resolve to record upon the leaves
that still remain a more noble history than the
child's story with which the book bCjjan."

A ROMANCE. 373

CHAPTER IX.

THE LAST PANG.

" Farewell to thee, Saint Gilgen ! " said
Flemming, as he turned on the brow of the hill,
to take his last look at the lake and the village
below, and felt that this was one of the few spots
on the wide earth to which he could say farewell
with regret. " Thy majestic hills have impressed
themselves upon my soul, as a seal upon wax.
The quiet beauty of thy lake shall be to me for-
ever an image of peace and purity and stillness,
and that inscription in thy little churchyard a sen-
tence of wisdom for my after life."

Before the setting of the same sun which then
shone on that fair landscape, he was far on his
way towards Munich He had left behind
him the mountams of the Tyrol ; and beheld them
for the last time in the soft evening twilight, their
bases green with forest-trees, and here and there
a sharp rocky spire, and a rounded summit cap-

374 HYPERION,

ped with snow. There they lay, their backs
like the backs of camels ; a mighty caravan, re-
posing at evening in its march- across the desert.

From Munich he passed through Augsburg and
Ulm, on his way to Stuttgard. At the entrances
of towns and villages, he saw large crucifixes ;
and on the fronts of many houses, coarse paint-
ings and images of saints. In Gunzburg three
priests in black were slowly passing down the
street, and women fell on their knees to receive a
blessing. There were many beggars, too, in the
streets ; and an old man who was making hay in
a field by the road-side, when he saw the car-
riage approaching, threw down his rake, and came
tumbling over the ditch, uttering the most dismal
wail, with his hat held out in both hands. The
next day, the bright yellow jackets of the postil-
ions, and the two great tassels of their bugle
horns, dangling down their backs, like cauli-
flowers, told him he was in Wiirtemberg ; and,
late in the evening, he stopped at a hotel in Stutt
gard ; and, from his chamber-window, saw, in the
bright moonlight, the old Gothic cathedral, with
its narrow, la.icet windows and jutting buttresses,
right in front of him. Ere long he had forgotten
all his cares and sorrows in sleep, and with them
his hopes, and wishes, and good resolves.

A ROMANCE. 375

He was slill sitting at breakfast in his chamber,
the next morning, when the great bell of the ca-
thedral opposite began to ring, and reminded him
that it was Sunday. Ere long the organ answer-
ed from within, and from its golden lips breathed
forth a psalm. The congregation began to as-
semble, and Flemming went up with them to the
house of the Lord. In the body of the church
he found the pews all filled or locked ; they
seemed to belong to families. He went up into
the gallery, and looked over the psalm-book of a
peasant, while the congregation sang the sublime
old hymn of Martin Luther, —

" Our God, he is a tower of strength,
A trusty shield and weapon."

During the smging, a fat clergyman, clad in black,
with a surplice thrown loosely about him, came
pacing along one of the aisles, from beneath the
organ-loft, and ascended the pulpit. After the
hymn, he read a portion of Scripture, and then
said : —

" Let us unite in silent prayer."

And turning round, he knelt in the pulpit, while
the congregation remained standing. For a while
there was a breathless silence in the church.

376 HYPERION,

which to Flemming was more solemnly impressive
than any audible prayer. The clergyman then
arose, and began his sermon. His theme was
the Reformation ; and he attempted to prove
how much easier it was to enter the kingdom of
Heaven through the gateways of the Reformea
Evangelical Dutch Church, than by the aisles and
penitential staircases of Saint Peter's. He then
gave a history of the Reformation ; and when
Flemming -thought he was near the end, he heard
him say that he should divide his discourse into
four heads. This reminded him of the sturdy old
Puritan, Cotton Mather, who, after preaching an
hour, would coolly turn the hour-glass on the
pulpit, and say : " Now, my beloved hearers, let
us take another glass." He stole out into the
silent, deserted street, and went to visit the vete-
ran sculptor Dannecker. He found him sitting
alone, with his psalm-book, and the reminiscences
of a life of eighty years. As Flemming entered,
he arose from the sofa, and tottered towards him ;
a venerable old man, of low stature, and dressed
in a loose white jacket, with a face like Frank-
lin's, his white hair flowing over his shoulders,
and a pale blue eye.

" So you are from America," said he.

A ROMANCE. 377

" But you have a German name. Paul Flera-
ming was one of our old poets. I have never
been in America, and never shall go there. I am
now too old. I have been in Paris and in Rome.
But that was long ago. I am now eight-and-
seventy years old."

Here he took Flamming by the hand, and made
him sit down by his side, on the sofa. And
Flemraing felt a mysterious awe creep over him,
on touching the hand of the good old man, who
sat so serenely amid the gathering shade of years,
and listened to life's curfew-bell, telling, with
eight-and-seventy solemn strokes, that the hour
had come, when the fires of all earthly passion
must be quenched within, and man must prepare
to lie down and rest till the morning.

" You see," he continued, in a melancholy
tone, " my hands are cold ; colder than yours.
They were warmer once. I am now an old
man."

'_' Yet these are the hands," answered Flem-
niing, " that sculptured the beauteous Ariadne
and the Panther. The soul never grows old."

" Nor does Nature," said the old man, pleased
with this allusion to his great work, and pointing
to the green trees before his window. " This

378 iiypERioN,

pleasure I have left to me. My sight is still good.
I can even distinguish objects on the side of
yonder mountain. My hearing is also unirapair
ed. For all which I thank God."

Then, directing Flemming's attention to a fine
engraving, which hung on the opposite wall of the
room, he continued : —

" That is an engraving of Canova's Religion.
I love to sit here and look at it, for hours to-
gether. It is beautiful. He made the statue for
his native town, where they had no church, until
he built them one. He placed the statue in it.
This engraving he sent me as a present. Ah;
he was a dear, good man. The name of his
native town I have forgotten. My memory fails
me. I cannot remember names."

Fearful that he had disturbed the old man in
his morning devotions, Flemming did not remain
long, but took his leave with regret. There was
something impressive in the scene he had witness-
ed ; — this beautiful old age of the artist ; sitting
by the open window, in the bright summer morn-
ing, — the labor of life accomplished, the horizon
reached, where heaven and earth meet, — think-
ing it was angel's music, when he heard the
church-bells ring ; himself too old to go. As he

A ROMANCE. 379

walked back to his chamber, he thought within
himself, whether he likewise might not accom-
plish something which should live after him, —
might not bring something permanent out of this
fast-fleeting life of man, and then sit down, like
the artist, in serene old age, and fold his hands in
silence. He wondered how a man felt, wlien he
grew so old, that he could no longer go to church,
but must sit at home and read the Bible in large
print. His heart was full of indefinite longings,
mingled with regrets ; longings to accomplish
something worthy of life ; regret that as yet he
had accomplished nothing, but had felt and
dreamed only. Thus the warm days in spring
bring forth passion-flowers and forget-me-nots.
It is only after midsummer, when the days grow
shorter and hotter, that fruit begins to appear.
Then the heaf of the day brings forward tlie har-
vest, and after the harvest the leaves fall, and
there is a gray frost. Much meditating upon these
things, Paul Flemming reached his hotel. A
that moment a person clad in green came down
the church-steps, and crossed the street. It was
the German mechanic of Interlachen. Flemming
started, as if a green snake had suddenly crossed
his path. He took refuge in his chamber.

380 HYPERION,

That night, as he was sitting^ alone in his cham-
ber, having made his preparations to depart the
following morning, his attention was arrested by
the sound of a female voice in the next room. A
thin partition, with a door, separated it from his
own. He had not before observed that the room
was occupied. But, in the stillness of the nighty
the tones of that voice struck his ear. He listen
ed. It was a lady, reading the prayers of the
English Church. The tones were familiar, and
awakened at once a thousand painfully sweet re-
collections. It was the voice of Mary Ashbur-
ton ! His heart could not be deceived ; and all
its wounds began to bleed afresh, like those of a
murdered man, when the murderer approaches
His first impulse was of affection only, boundless,
irrepressible, delirious, as of old in the green val-
ley of Interlachen. He waited for the voice to
cease, that he might go to her, and behold her
face once more. And then his pride rose up
within him, and rebuked this weakness. He re-
membered his firm resolve, and blushed to find
himself so feeble. And the voice ceased, and
yet he did not go. Pride had so far gained the
mastery over affection. He lay down upon his
bed, like a child as he was. All about him was

A ROMANCE 381

silence, and the silence was holy, for she was
near ; so near that he could almost hear the beat-
ing of her heart. He knew now for the first time
how weak he was, and how strong was his passion
for that woman. His heart was like the altar of
the Israelites of old ; and, though drenched with
tears, as with rain, it was kindled at once by the
holy fire from heaven I

Towards morning he fell asleep, exhausted with
*he strong excitement ; and, in that hour, when,
sleep being " nigh unto the soul," visions are
deemed prophetic, he dreamed. O blessed vision
of the morning, stay •! thou wast so fair ! He
stood again on the green sunny meadow, beneath
the ruined tower ; and she was by his side, with
her pale, speaking countenance and holy eyes ;
and he kissed her fair forehead ; and she turned
her face towards him, beaming with affection, and
said, " I confess it now ; you are the Magician ! "
and pressed him in a meek embrace, that he
■" might rather feel than see the swelling of her
heart." And then she faded away from his arms,
and her face became transfigured, and her voice
like the voice of an angel in heaven ; — and he
awoke, and was alone !

It was broad daylight ; and he heard the pos-

382 HYPERION.

tilion, and the stamping of horses' hoofs on the
pavement at the door. At the same moment his
servant came in with coffee, and told him all was
ready. He did not dare to stay. But, throwing
himself into the carriage, he cast one look towards
the window of the Dark Ladie, and a moment af-
terwards had left her for ever ! He had drunk
the last drop of the bitter cup, and now laid the
golden goblet gently down, knowing that he should
behold it no more !

No more ! O, how majestically mournful are
those words ! They sound like the roar of the
wind through a forest of pines !

END OF BOOK IV.